


Aidan Locke 1; This Thing of Darkness

by YettiFerrell



Series: Aidan Locke [1]
Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: M/M, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-11-01 22:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20522999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YettiFerrell/pseuds/YettiFerrell
Summary: Aidan Locke was born an orphan in the city of Philadelphia only to find himself as one of the Fae, a Fomoire one of the legendary monster people. With no family or home besides his city, Aidan makes his way as a brute for hire. This time a job has come up that's not only more dangerous than usual but also can get anyone who he comes into contact burned along with him. Aidan also must contend with a new stranger in the mix who is more dangerous and cunning than his normal run of the mill thugs. He has to keep his head above the proverbial water and try to survive.





	Aidan Locke 1; This Thing of Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> While the world and mechanics of the October Daye series are property of Seanan McGuire. Most of the characters in this particular story are ones I've made myself. None of this has been written with the intent to profit of or plagiarize the work of anyone else. This was largely done as a writing exercise.

“ _ These three have robb'd me, and this demi-devil— _

_ For he's a bastard one—had plotted with them _

_ To take my life. Two of these fellows you _

_ Must know and own; this thing of darkness I _

_ Acknowledge mine.” _

\-  _ The Tempest _ by William Shakespeare

** 1 **

It wasn’t the first time I found myself in West Philadelphia’s less affluent neighborhoods, but generally speaking I didn’t find myself looking down the barrel of a gun while I was there. Despite the neighborhood’s reputation, most of the people were just hard working folks desperate to find a way out of the shitty hand life had dealt them. They were usually too busy to accost an equally destitute looking man who, they knew, didn’t belong there. Especially when every instinct they had was telling them to walk, if not run, away. This time however I wasn’t just dealing with humans who were only too happy to look the other way.

To my eternal shame, I had let my quarry get the drop on me, expecting a fist fight when instead I was staring down six chambers full of iron...goody.

The Changeling facing me trained the revolver on my face with a shaking hand. His emaciated face was a conflicted mask of fear and rage. Just my luck, he looked just crazed enough to actually shoot me. What was worse, his illusions were slipping with his terror, filling the air with the scents of lemons and gasoline. His eyes were slipping from a fairly human shade of cobalt blue to their normal blood red. His skin was turning an unhealthy shade of light blue not the dark gray blue it would have been had he been full blooded but enough to let you know he wasn't fully human. His mouth which had been as human as the people who were avoiding the alleyway, was elongating into a short, pointed beak. His neck thinned and lengthened, accentuating his birdlike appearance. The hands holding the gun were reverting to its normal webbed state and the sudden hump in his shirt told me his shell had come back into sight. If I hadn’t known he was a Kappa Changeling when I took the job, he might have even given me a bit of a fright. Even now, I couldn’t afford to let this guy get the better of me. The alleyway was open to a residential street, if I didn’t end things quickly even the humans wouldn’t be able to keep ignoring us.

“I told you not to follow me” He croaked at me. I wasn’t exactly sure how he formed the words with a beak, but he seemed to do it without much trouble. The gun shook steadily and his hands looked like they were about slip at any second. The sudden urgency I felt for ending this debacle increased a few notches. If I didn't watch myself he could slip and shoot me by accident. “All you had to do was go home, Locke.”

“I have clients, Warrick.” I started in a soft voice. I could feel my instincts begging to kick in. The urge to let the transformation begin was so strong I could already smell my magic rising around me. I had to clench my fists in my pockets to hide the fact that my hands would be changing into long, serrated claws. Warrick's magic was suddenly overridden by the rich scents of marsh water and hazelnuts. It was too distinctive a trace, not that I had any say in the matter, and it served me ill here. “You stepped on a lot of toes and you had to know this was coming. Come quietly and we don't have to do this.”

Warrick sniffed with air, which sounded like air being blown through holes in cardboard. His eyes snapped on mine deepening until they were almost black. What parts of his face were regular flesh, tautened visibly.

“Stop that!” He hissed, he sounded remarkably like an angry goose. “I can smell you, stop whatever you're doing.”

I had always found Kappas to be some of the stranger denizens of Fairy. They came from Japan with the Kitsune and I've never found two races more at odds with each other. The Kitsune were usually always beautiful, flowing tails and furred ears, all grace and air and fire. Kappas were just the opposite, all water and darkness. Where the vulpine elements of the Kitsune were integrated flawlessly and beautifully with their more humanoid form, the avian form of the Kappa was anything but beautiful. Then again, my ancestors were frequently called “the monster people”. So I suppose I had no room to talk.

“Come quietly, Warrick.” I ordered, confidently...much more confidently than I was actually feeling at them moment. I was starting to get twitchy and my skin was starting to burn. I could feel the iron bullets in the gun begging to be set free and destroy what they could of Faye nature. As a changeling, Warrick could handle the damn gun without too much trouble, but I was bonafide Fomoire pure blood and that shit hurt even at a distance. Where a piece of gutter trash like Warrick ever managed to get a hold of iron bullets, I couldn’t say. But I would definitely be looking for his supplier next. The more of the burning I felt, the angrier I became. The angrier I grew the more I could feel my teeth sharpening into rows of serrated shark's fangs.

“Come quietly and it doesn't have to be too bad.” I purred gently at him through my new teeth. My vocal chords were beginning to change, I could feel it. They would wind my voice down to a menacing growl meant to frighten. I had to do my soothing and negotiating before that happened. Warrick would take it as a threat and probably open fire. “The king will be lenient if you come quietly.”

“You're either lying or you're a fucking idiot!” Warrick laughed, an entirely birdlike sound; like the sound geese make when they flew in formation. I couldn't quite begrudge him that. King Bres McLeod, current monarch of the Lands of the Tolling Bell, was notoriously without mercy and that went double for changelings. The best Warrick could hope for after breaking the goblin fruit ban was an eternity spent as a wandering vine in some noble's garden. Or, if the king was feeling really generous, he might turn him into a white hart and hunt him down Market Street. Then, at least, he would have the opportunity to escape.

That didn't change anything however. I might have felt a little sorry for him, but he'd been peddling death to kids for too long for me to really give a damn. I'd seen too many starving kids shivering in the halls of my employer to really give a rat’s ass what happened to him anymore. The job was simple, get the dealer and bring him to the king. It was the only reason Warrick was still alive. If I had been able to get my way, I would have left him gutted, bleeding and waiting for the Night Haunts, but the king liked me even less than he liked most changelings and if I was going to bring this guy before him, I needed to keep my hands clean.

“It's too late” Warrick honked at me, his voice rising in hysterics. “If you think I'm just gonna let you gut me and eat me...!”

“What is it with you people?!” I hissed, my voice now changing to the animal's growl. “Why does everyone thing I eat people?!”

My skin was tingling as it erupted in blue-green scales hard as rock, my body's idea of natural armor. I could feel the muscles in my legs changing, preparing for the pounce. The smell of marsh water and hazelnuts was cloying now and it seemed to fill the world.

“Last chance!” I growled taking my hands out of my pocket and raising the claws. “Come with me quietly and without a struggle, and this doesn't have to get physical.”

Warrick's hand shook a little bit more as he looked down at the gun, then back to my face, then down at the gun again.

“Oh give me a reason asshole!” I growled loudly, sounding more tiger than man. “I want nothing more than to make shoelaces out of your intestines. Give me a fucking reason.”

Warrick's hand contracted, a second before the gun went off. It was enough. My body had adapted itself for a flight or fight response and it could move like lightning when properly motivated. The world seemed to slow and stand still as I dodged to the left, the small pellet of dark gray iron burning my neck as it missed me by a few inches. Then I shot forward, my serrated claws swinging in a cruel arc. They sliced through scaled flesh and opened four blue blooded rents in the hand holding the gun. Screaming, Warrick let the gun go, his hand going limp as the wounds began to bleed. My nose picked up the foul stench of kappa blood, dead fish and stagnant water, and it tried to awaken something feral in me. Some instinct that told me to pounce and kill.

Biting back as much of my natural ferocity as I could, I used the rest of my momentum to seize Warrick by his long, thin throat and slam him up against the alley wall, lifting him several inches off the ground in the process. I could hear myself growling, and see myself reflected in the kappa's big red eyes. My own eyes were almost pure white only tiny bluish pinpricks at the center were left, flanked by a face covered in blue-green scales.

“I'm really glad you decided to not do this the easy way, Warrick.” I said, running one claw down his face with exaggerated pleasure at the terror on his face. My hand itched, it was begging me to curl it into a claw and rake it across this bastard's throat. “Tell me, what body parts are you really not too sad about losing.”

“Fuck you, Locke.” Warrick honked at me. His fight was gone now, he had lost and he knew it. His gun was five feet away, and he was pinned to a wall by an angry Fomoire. The only reason he was still alive was that I needed him for the King to punish. “What are you gonna do? Drag me to the king. You can't do shit without the mortals noticing.”

He was both right and wrong. What he meant was that he knew I couldn't cast illusions. “Don't look here” spells in particular eluded my grasp. If I tried to drag him to the king as he was, I would end up dealing with human police before long. He was wrong in one respect however. I had plenty other options besides illusions.

I kept looking him full in the face, filling his vision with my eyes. I could see a new wave of fear suffuse him as my magic started to wrap itself around him, fulfilling my intentions before I even acted.

“When shall we two meet again.” I chanted, the subtle decay of the marsh filling my nose. “In thunder, lightning or in rain. When the hurlyburly's done. When the battle's lost or won. That will be ere the set of sun.”

With the last line said, spell snapped closed. Like a weight it pressed down on the man in my hand. I could feel my magick break through the resistance of his own, smashing it down into the body of it's host. I felt my magic enter his body and change everything it touched. Only the focus of my intent was keeping it on track and truthfully if he’d been anything other than a half-starved changeling it probably wouldn’t have worked.

Warrick began to shrink. His body compacting and leaving his clothes to puddle on the ground. His legs shifted up toward his body turning black. His arms shrunk sprouting black, white, and tan feathers as they did so. His neck grew even longer and thinner as his beaked head shrunk and sprouted feathers as well. In a few seconds, I had a full grown, male, Canadian goose, honking away in my grip. It flapped it's wings and kicked it's legs trying to find any way to free itself. But I had it firmly by the neck, keeping it from biting me. I walked back to my coat, still lying where I'd thrown it, thinking this might come to fisticuffs but never expecting a gun full of iron bullets. I fiddled in one of the breast pockets pulling out a large cloth drawstring bag. Without further preamble, I stuffed the goose into the bag and pulled the drawstring closed. Warrick could do little besides honk forlornly and struggle.

Tossing the bag onto the ground, I walked over to a boarded up window to check my reflection. Whatever they used to cover the inside of the window was black, making it the best mirror I'd get until I got back to my car. I saw my battle ready face in there, blue green scales covering my whole head, my pointed ears elongated and covered in black fur. Smiling, I saw the rows of pearly white sharks fangs and groaned. It always took me a while to get any sort of transformation going, but to get back from my mostly inhuman battle form was a long trying task. I closed my eyes and focused on my human shape. The pale skin, round ears, shaggy black hair and equally shaggy beard. I concentrated on human height and appendages, forcing my claws to shrink and broaden into human fingernail. I forced my body's musculature to revert to normal human capabilities. Finally I focused on my eyes. Eyes are said to be the window to the soul and only those protean enough to change their shapes on a daily basis knew the truth of that. Eyes were the hardest thing for Maeve's children to hide. Even now, surrounded by the scent of marsh and hazelnuts I felt them resist the change. In the end, however, I opened them to find two, green, human eyes looking back at me. I looked just as I should. I looked human, tired as hell but human, clad in a ratty old t-shirt and jeans.

I sighed with exhaustion leaning against the wall. Transformation is not easy magic, especially when you're only half trained and motivated by mostly instinct. My knees were so wobbly I thought they might buckle from under me. Luckily after a few minutes, I was able to keep my feet and move again. I moved to get my coat, the cold suddenly a lot more of a pressing problem in my human form. It was bushy gray thing puffy and strong. I slipped it around me and grabbed the still shuffling and honking bag. I let Warrick kick, slinging the bag over my shoulder and made my way out of the alleyway.

The walk to my olive colored Honda CR-V was a short one. I had been scoping out Warrick's spots when I'd caught him by chance and I hadn't had to follow him long before he noticed me. Luckily the few people walking briskly down the street, were too intent on escaping the cold to notice my twitching, honking burden. Their eyes locked onto me for an instant, drawn by the noise Warrick was making. Then they saw my demeanor and their instincts kicked in. I don't know what their minds told them. Probably that I was some crazy homeless guy who'd stumbled on his next meal, but the natural aversion for the Fae humans have went double for the Fomoire.

Tossing Warrick into the back seat, I collapsed into the driver's seat rather than sitting. I took just enough time to close the door before leaning back and taking deep breaths. I had to admit I'd been putting too much of myself into this job. I hadn't slept for a couple days now and I'd been using way too much magic for how little rest I was taking. Even the momentary reprieve I was taking was interrupted by the racket the goose in my back seat was making. I opened my eyes again, forcing myself back to usefulness. I just had a few more things to do before I could sleep for the better part of a week and forget this job ever happened. I started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

**2**

I'd been a fixer for the entirety of my adult life. If someone had an issue no one else could deal with, or that no one else wanted to deal with, I took care of it. The job was rough, the job was dangerous, worst of all, it was the only job in all of Fairy that I was qualified for.

I was pure blooded, as far as anyone could tell, not that the Fomoire are common enough that anyone could really tell. The few people who even knew about my race that I've met seemed pretty certain that I am pure, though, and who am I to disagree. The sad part is I don't know a damn thing about my own people.

I was abandoned as a baby on the steps of a human orphanage. No note, no tearful goodbyes, nothing as far as the orphanage staff were concerned. My instinctive childish magic was enough to keep me looking like any other human baby and they found me crying just inside the door. No one had noticed anyone putting me there. The police were called and inquiries were made, but nothing and no one was ever found. The orphanage ended up keeping me. They had to make up all new legal documents for me in the human world, a whole new birth identity so I could exist. They called me Aidan.

I was six when I finally got adopted. The human instinct to ignore the Fae kept most families from taking me in. If my adoptive mother hadn't happened to have Fae blood somewhere in her line I think I would have spent the rest of my childhood in that place, but she found me, and she took me home. My adoptive father took a little longer to warm to me, but after a year in my company he was able to ignore the warning his blood sent him. The Locke's were good people, they kept me happy and safe. I had a home, I had a family that loved me. My instinctive magic was enough to keep me believing I was human for seven more years, until it began to fade.

It started in small fits at first. I'd notice one of my ears tapering to a point, one of my eyes changing colors at random. It freaked me out unbelievably, I thought I was going crazy. I did my best to hide it from my family. But the changes didn't have the courtesy to wait until I was alone. I was sitting in my eighth grade history class, when I could feel my body shifting, both my ears shooting into points, and the tingling showing my skin was changing color. I said something about having to throw up before sprinting from the room at top speed.

I spent the next fifteen minutes in front of the mirror, willing my face back to the human face I knew. It was the first time I smelled the marsh water and hazelnuts that marked my magic. When I had finally gotten myself back to where I had been before, I slumped against the sink and cried, not knowing what was going on. I was terrified when the door opened and a boy from my class walked in.

Andy had been a tall boy even at thirteen. His chocolate brown hair was a shaggy mop above congenial blue eyes. He cocked his head as he saw me wiping anxious tears away and tossed my school bag at my feet. He smiled and hugged me in a bear like grip, taking me but surprised to the point that I stopped crying.

“You have to be careful.” He said sniffing at the air and holding me obnoxiously close. I didn't quite know how to respond to this boy I barely knew, hugging the life out of me. “I know illusions can be hard for the Maeve kids but if you're not careful the humans are going to notice.”

Andy's voice had been calm and reassuring, like a pep talk would soothe all my problems away. His words however had the opposite effect. I started struggling in his arms as the words hit home and something I'd been wondering came to the forefront.

“I am human!” I said a little too forcefully, fear driving me to a frenzy. “What are you talking about.”

  
  


“But...” Andy sniffed me, poking his nose in my face and inhaling. “I smell you. I can smell the magick on you. It's water magic right? Your a Maeve Fae.”

“What are you talking about!” I hissed, backing up until I hit one of the stalls.

“Its okay, look,” In a blast of mint and the smell of new paper, the brown haired boy in front of me changed. His ears pointed out and his hair was bright white with cherry red tips. “I'm like you!”

I knew I should have been terrified, I should have run from the room screaming in terror. But I stayed where I was transfixed by the possibility of answers. Finally I could figure out what was going on with me.

“What court are you from?” He asked looking me up and down, the smell of mint and paper flared again, and his human disguise reasserted itself.

I broke down in his arms, not able to hold back anymore. I told him the whole sorry tale of my life, and he looked more confused than I did by the end of it. Without any other ideas of what to do, he waited till the end of the school day, and took me to talk to his parents. And they took me to the Duchess of Hero’s Hearth.

King Bres' knowe wasn't particularly difficult to get to. All the inner city Philadelphia Fae needed to have a way to come and go without attracting much attention. The entrance was hidden in a high end apartment building just off Fifth and Vine. A large archway marked what looked like the pedestrian entrance to the complex's parking lot. A beautifully constructed gate blocked the archway. It was wrought in designs of flowers and a large triquetra in its center. To the untrained eye it might appear to be made of wrought iron, but judging by the fact that I didn't burst into flames when I got near it, I could tell it was made of some other metal, lucky me.

Tucking the honking goose into my coat in an attempt to muffle its commotion, I reached up and tapped three times on the center most brick and five times on each brick next to it. With a small creaking noise, the gate swung inward. I stepped under the archway and for a moment I was in complete darkness. When I emerged on the other side, I wasn't in the parking lot. With a small dip and weave of my perception I was in a large warm entrance hall, lit with golden candles resting in daffodil shaped sconces. The walls were draped in caramel colored velvet curtains held back with golden ropes to reveal the tan and white marble of the walls. Several cream colored couches rested against the walls and tall mahogany doors led off into other parts of the knowe. Two huge double doors stood at the end of the large hall, flanked on either side by two knights in leather armor dyed in the Kings colors, gold and cream.

“Howdy,” I rasped at them, taking my time in traversing the ridiculous distance between doors. “Got me a criminal for you boys.”

“State your business, Locke.” One pronounced pompously. He was tall for a Gwarygen. My human disguise was fairly tall and he was able to look me in the eyes. I knew both of the guards, they'd been here when I'd played the bounty hunter numerous times before. They would likely make getting into see the king as hard as they could. They wouldn't be pleasing their liege unless I was in a frothing temper by the time I saw him. Smiling I raised the bag in my hands, the honking and kicking resuming.

“I have a goblin fruit peddler I've been tasked with bringing before the king's justice.”

The two guards looked at the bag, their eyes immediately flicking to look at each other. Their faces were utterly dubious as if they were deciding whether I had finally gone nuts. I shook my head at them, annoyed more than angry. They would be purposefully stupid on the day I was utterly exhausted, wouldn't they.

“Forced transformation guys, come on!” I said exhausted. This particular pair had done this exact song and dance before and I was in no mood this time. “I'm not nuts and I'd rather not take up more of his Majesty's time than strictly necessary.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie, I did want to get out of there as soon as possible. In all truthfulness, however, I could give two shits about whether I wasted the King’s time or not. The only reason we haven’t come to blows yet was he would probably have turned me into a cockroach.

Either they took my plea to heart, or more likely they decided to indulge the crazy man until he went away. Because the Gwarygen disappeared through the door, while the other (Cu Sidhe from the looks of him and the way he kept sniffing) stood with me outside. Eventually the Gwarygen returned gesturing for me to follow him. He led me through another long hallway before we appeared at two guarded doors bearing the bell and hammer seal of the King. The doors opened as we approached seemingly of their own accord and we passed through them. The room beyond was the same color marble. Large arched windows lined the walls showing a beautifully tended garden below a pristine star-filled Summerland's sky.

In the center of the room rested a gilded throne, crested with a tall golden bell. Sitting in the chair as if he were bored with the whole of reality was King Bres McLeod. He looked young for a monarch, even for one of the Dione Sidhe, if he were human I would have put his age at no more than sixteen but I knew better. His hair was a flowing mane of gold that framed a face that looked like it could have walked out of Lord of the Rings. His eyes were the best bit of him, at least in my opinion, a fiery gold to match all that hair. His eyes and hair complimented their gold color by adding an honest to goodness metallic tint. It was like a golden statue came to life and started making people's lives a living hell.

“My Dear Aidan,” He said in a deep lilting tone that would have made any voice acting agent cream their jeans. “To what do I owe this rare...pleasure”

The emphasis he put on the word let me know how unwelcome my visit was. He didn't need to worry, I wasn't staying any longer than I had to. In answer to his question, I unlaced the drawstring of the bag and dumped the goose out.

In a flurry of feathers the bird flew from the floor like a bat out of hell and took off for freedom. Where it was intended to go, I never found out. The King waved his hand lazily and my forced transformation unraveled like a badly knit sweater. A naked kappa changeling fell face first to the marble floor. He was shivering from the top of his bald head to the turtle shell covering his back, and right on down to his webbed toes. I could see how thin he was here, the poor idiot had dipped into his own supply somewhere along the line, he'd have been dead in a few weeks if I hadn't caught him.

“Who is this then?” Bres said, boredom plain in his voice. In a flash of utter fear, Warrick found his feet and launched himself toward one of the windows. He didn't even get two steps in. Cat quick, the King focused his eyes on Warrick, extending his right index finger toward him. Warrick froze in mid step. Normally holding that pose would have usually meant crashing to the floor, but the King had him so tightly bound that not even gravity could do its job.

“Oh no,” The King said, his whole posture changing. Instead of lounging bored and languid, he was predatory now, ready to strike down his prey. “I'm afraid the party's not over. You don't want to leave until we've had some fun do you?”

“This is Warrick Onaka” I said, not even knowing if the King was listening to me. “He's been peddling goblin fruit within the city limits. You have a warrant for his arrest.”

“Did you hear that?” The king said, surveying Warrick like a cat surveys a cockroach. “Mr. Locke is ready to sell you to me. That must sting, I know you scum usually stick together at the bottom of the barrel, but you mustn't blame him. It is all he's good for.”

The king cast a cocky grin my way. I gazed back, tired and uncaring. The king has been attempting to goad me into banishment for years. Luckily I grew up on human side of Philly, where manners were worthless and getting called an asshole for absolutely no reason was a weekly occurrence. The king's little asides about how I didn't belong were about as painful as getting hit with a foam bat.

“Damian!” King Bres called. A tall dark haired Tuatha De Danann stepped out from behind the throne, dressed in a suit that made him look like the stereotypical British butler. I swear, I have no idea where these blue bloods get their fashion sense from. “Is this filth on the list.”

“I believe so your Majesty.” He took out a small pocket sized notebook from inside his black vest and thumbed through the pages. “Warrick Onaka, Kappa changeling, wanted for possession and distribution of illicit substances.”

Closing the book, Damian looked across the room to me. He fixed me with his usual blank gray eyed stare. Tuatha and Fomoire hated each other on general principle and Damian was no different. He wouldn't dishonor his King by trading flurries of insults with me, but he was well within his rights to glare. Given he was the King's own senechal I couldn't do much more than glare right back. Not that I had much of the cultural context to understand why he disliked me so much, but still, I wasn't keen on people who gave me dirty looks in public.

The King was still meandering around and around Warrick, seemingly thinking of what to do with his prisoner. I felt profoundly uncomfortable sitting there as the king paced around the naked man. I've seen this behavior from guys at the clubs me and Andy occasionally go to, but never quite with this lack of subtlety.

“You know?” He asked viciously. “I think Aidan had a good look for you.”

With a clap of his hands, Warrick screamed and his body began to ripple again. This transformation looked far more painful than mine ever did. The skin didn't flow into feathers so much as they forced their way out of his skin. His legs twisted themselves into shape with audible cracks. I visibly cringed as the King lengthened each aspect of the transformation into a painful punishment. It wasn't long before the honking Canadian goose was flouncing about on the floor. For some reason he wasn't taking flight and I had a sneaking suspicion that the king had done something painful to his wings.

“Damian!” The King called as he crossed the space back to his throne, the boredom reasserting itself in his voice. “Collect that, will you? I feel like a nice bit of hunting later.”

“Yes, my liege.” Damian responded. In an instant he crossed the distance between him and the bird grabbing it deftly by the neck as it tried to waddle away. The wafting smell of beeswax and clover drifted in his wake.

“Here,” I said, tossing the drawstring bag at his face rather than his chest. To my dismay, he caught it deftly as it sped toward him. “You're going to need that, he bites.”

My warning came just in time for the goose to snap its beak down on his exposed wrist. Damian hissed in pain, and I struggled to hide my smirk. With another blast of beeswax and clover, Damian was gone. Sadly this did nothing to improve the tension in the room. The King was glaring impassively at me as if he couldn't quite understand what I was doing there.

“May I go your liege” I said after waiting for my dismissal for a minute or two.

“Oh Yes,” He said eyes showing realization. He hadn't spared me enough thought to realize I was standing on propriety. “Begone, I have to have the Hobbs clean the hall after you and your changeling friend. I want it finished as soon as possible.”

Dropping into a mocking half bow, I turned and left the hall. The guards didn't bother looking at me as I left the hall. They closed the doors after me with an audible slam and I heaved a sigh of relief. I didn't realize just exactly how tense I'd been until I'd walked out of the throne room. With the tension gone, I was just tired. I wanted more than I could say to just pass out and have Andy bring me a sandwich in bed.

Getting to my car was an event, It was so difficult to keep my eyes open when the idea of sleep was so appealing. I fell into the driver's seat of the car and I let my head fall forward onto my chest. I just needed five minutes. Just five.

  
  


My eyes opened on a dark moor. Dank willows rose out of the mud and shrouded the place in their trailing branches. I could smell decay all around me, and the overhanging scent of marsh water. I knew they ought to be unpleasant smells, everything in my human upbringing told me they should be. But the trees and smells and even the mud underneath my feet, made me feel at home.

A woman stood by one of the willows, one hand resting on the bark, eyes closed in apparent concentration. I'd never seen her before and I was wondering how she got into my dreams when her eyes snapped open and fixed on me. They were pure white, but as I watched pupil and iris slipped back in. She was a stocky woman in a long black dress, pretty in an earthy way. She had a scowling face and freckles and acne scars dotted her cheeks. She looked almost completely human, except for the eyes.

“Who the fuck are you?!” She growled at me, taking her hand off the tree and walking my way. When she was about a foot away, she leaned forward and sniffed. I don't know why but this tiny aggressive woman didn't seem to upset me. She, like our surroundings, somehow made me feel even more at home. “Ugh, One of Balor's brats, huh?”

“Sorry?” I asked.

“Are you fucking dense?! Balor! Your firstborn! You're Fomoire aren't you?!” This lady looked like she would take my head off with a thought and I decided to be honest with her.

“I'm sorry I don't know much about Fomoire,” I muttered at her, feeling the odd desire to put my customary authority issues aside and treat her with respect. “I'm sort of adopted.”

“I don't have time for this!” The woman snapped. “I have someone to find.”

She left my personal space bubble and strode off into the mist, her fists clenched tight.

“Wait!” I called after her, the mist was getting thicker and I could barely make out her silhouette. I couldn't say quite why, but I needed to talk to her. There was something important I needed to ask, something about my parents. But she didn't stop, and even running after her didn't bring her back into sight. Finally the mists were so thick that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face as I ran full tilt in her direction, searching for her. A willow branch suddenly whipped out of nowhere and sped towards my face with a threatening snap.

  
  


I woke with a start, bolting in my seat with a faint gasp. The snap that woke me repeated itself and I spun to the driver's side window. A cop stood there tapping his baton on the glass. Fumbling with the keys, I turned the car on and rolled down the window.

“You alright, son?” The officer asked bending down to look in the car. He was sniffing when he did, trying, I guessed, to catch a hint of alcohol.

“I'm sorry officer,” I said rubbing my eyes. “I pulled a couple doubles the last few nights and it just crept up on me.”

“Well,” The officer sniffed one final time, apparently satisfied that I hadn't been drinking. “How far's your drive home?”.

“Not to far, Just to Fifth and Bainbridge.” The cop nodded at me in silent ascent, straightening. 

“Just make sure you get home quick, son.” He said. “And try to get some sleep. You look like hell.”

“Thanks I will.” I called after him, rubbing my eyes the instant he was out of sight. 

I turned my gaze to what could be seen of the horizon over the city skyline. What had been deep blackness before I fell asleep, was lightening to a cold navy blue. If I didn’t get home soon, I’d be stuck out during dawn. A few of my Fae cousins could comb their hair over the points of their ears, look down at the ground and they could get by just fine. I, sadly, was not among their number. If my dumb ass got caught in broad daylight there were going to be a few tabloid writers who ate very well this month. Luckily I hadn’t been lying when I told the cop I only had a short drive.

Fifth and Bainbridge straddled the line of the less than affluence of South Philadelphia, and the utter abundance of the Center City. Old three story row houses bumped elbows with apartments that cost more than ten times my rent. Ancient buildings that stood since the Colonial days rested alongside the brand new Whole Foods. Only a few blocks from the Center City and the Gayborhood, even Penn’s Landing was reasonably close at hand. It was one of the clear melting pots of the city, where rich met poor, where business met pleasure, and where the daily grind of everyday met the best part of someone’s life. 

None of that seemed to be happening in the predawn chill however. The streets which usually thrummed with life were almost empty save for a few homeless people and late night drunks. The usually deadly intersection my home was near also lacked its usual vehicular song and dance, for which I was grateful. I pulled into the parking space, Andy had enchanted for me, keeping anyone else from parking in it when I was away. I pulled my Coat tight around me and tried my best to ignore the morning cold as I beat a hasty retreat to the front door. The door was attached to one of the aforementioned three story row homes, the first story of which was taken up by the garish displays of the erotic supply shop we lived over.

Even this early in the morning the red neon lights glowed in the store’s front window, “Kitten with a Whip” flashing out onto the empty streets. A female mannequin stood, dressed in a vinyl bodysuit and brandishing a cat-o-nine tails. Underneath this display a male mannequin in assless leather chaps groveled at her feet, the collar it was wearing linking it to the other mannequin’s hand. I had always liked the display. It had nearly given my mother a coronary the first time she came to visit and anything that lewd was just fine by me. Sadly in this cold, I wasn’t much inclined to stop and smile at the faceless black-clad figures. 

The door that lead to my apartment was closed. Several concert posters were taped to the front and a Chinese food menu was wrapped precariously around the handle. The gold shamrock hanging above the door hummed slightly to all those who could hear magic. Telling me the wards were open but not broken. It was Andy’s night off, and his recent foray into online gaming meant that he probably spent the whole night inside. Not looking forward to the mess I would find in the kitchen and bedroom I pushed open the door and locked it behind me. 

“I’m home!” I called wearily as I emerged into the kitchen, tossing my keys onto the table set opposite the entry stairwell. A loud deep bark sounded from the living room to my right and I looked up just in time to see a huge Saint Bernard, launch itself off the loveseat at my direction. The bundle of fur hit me square in the chest and I toppled backwards, just managing to get my hands underneath me before I could bonk my head on the kitchen tile. “Christ on a pogo stick Andy! I told you not to do that!”

There was the distinct scent of mint and new paper, and the Saint Bernard atop me became a gigantic man. Six foot eight inches of pure tempered muscle sat atop me, his gleeful gold eyes complementing nicely with the red streaks in his white hair. Even his bushy white beard was tipped in red. Presently his mouth was split in a wide grin and he was making the soft whining noises of an excited dog. 

“You’re HOME!” He said wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into a fierce hug. He buried his nose in my hair and sniffed deeply. There was something to be said for being a dog person. I couldn’t help but love the amorous treatment. Despite all the bruising this incident would leave, I couldn’t help but find it adorable. Pulling Andy up so he was facing me, I kissed him deeply and with more vigor than I knew I still had. It had been a few days since I’d seen him and I’d missed him sorely.

I breathed in the deep scent of mint that rolled off him, even when he wasn’t using his magic. it was helped by the fact that he hadn’t been wearing a shirt when he tackled me, and the heat of his flesh sent the scent in all directions. My hands traveled the silky skin of his back, drawing him even closer to me. The scratching sensation of his beard mingling with mine made the kiss all the sweeter.

We lay there like that for a long while, kissing and holding each other close. Eventually Andy pulled away smiling wide and joyous. He squinted down at me with a confused look on his face and ran his hands through my hair. 

“Why do you still look human?” He asked, shifting his weight so as not to crush my pelvis. 

“Well I did just walk in the door.” I shot back incredulously. “Just wait a few minutes, it’s almost dawn.”

He rejoined me in the kiss and we rolled around on the floor pulling each other tighter and tighter, until we were so tangled in each other's bodies, we barely noticed when the dawn hit. Only the sudden loss of breath in our lungs and the ashy smell of dead magic signified the dawn's arrival. The human transformation I was wrapped in began to unravel itself in the dawn’s light. We stopped for a moment when the pressure of dawn faded and we panted at each other, trying to catch our breaths. I was suddenly unbelievably weary. 

“Let’s go to bed, honey.” I whispered to him as he nuzzled my neck. “Apart from a few other things on the agenda, I’d really love to catch some sleep.”

With nothing but a smile on his face, Andy picked himself up off the floor before scooping me into his arms and lifting me. I thought about protesting for a moment, but really what was the point of having a giant ripped boyfriend if he can't carry you across the threshold now and then. 

After a lively hour messing up the sheets, Andy and I were able to drift off into a long easy sleep. His snuffling snores were like a lullaby to me. I had a few strange dreams but nothing concrete. Just the image of walking in Marshlands surrounded on all sides by pines. The smell of pine sap and ocean were so palpable and the winter chill was biting against my flesh. I could see a distant figure through the thick mist but beyond a shadowy human like form, there wasn’t anything I could discern. 

  
  


**3**

I woke up at sunset with the strange sense that I was supposed to do something. Like there was something the dream had told me to do and I was just too dense to get it. I was hoping the whole “misty dream” wasn’t going to become a recurring thing. 

Judging from the carefree singing that was emanating from the bathroom, I could tell Andy was already up and in the shower. I laid there with my eyes closed for as long as I could, before the insistent rays of the setting sun, demanded I wake and take care of business. I untangled myself from the sheets and stood, stretching as much as I could to wake my quiescent limbs, before I followed Andy’s voice into the bathroom. 

I stood there for a moment studying my reflection and making sure the dawn took care of my disguise. There was my black beard and shaggy black hair well represented, but the smooth pale skin was lined with black tribal designs that covered my face, body, and even the tips of my long sharply pointed ears. Anyone who saw me would assume that those were tattoos rather than just the way my skin looked, and there were days I really wished they were. My eyes had shifted from a sea foam blue to a deep luminescent violet. As I yawned, I caught sight of the sharp fangs I had in place of canines, jutting out to needle sharp points, like a cat’s teeth. Sighing laboriously I began the semi-difficult process of brushing my teeth. 

Andy emerged from the old blue shower behind me, swiping aside the shower curtain, decorated in a macabre motif of fake bloody handprints, evoking the feel of  _ Psycho _ . He shook the water from his hair and beard like the dog he was at heart and stepped from the tub dripping and naked as a babe. Another thing to love about Andy was his utter lack of nudity taboos. I eyed up the more sensitive bits of my gargantuan boyfriend, thankful that some duke a thousand years ago, took a special interest in breeding the biggest and baddest Cu Sidhe guards he possibly could. I mean sure, it was a horrible violation of basic rights and plenty of “underbred” puppies were either killed or abandoned....but on the other hand my boyfriend is a fucking muscled god. Don’t go thinking I’m shallow just yet. I like the adorable goober for his mind too. The excellent ass is just an added perk. 

“Good morning!” He said, wrapping me in his arms and burying his nose in my hair. The closeness, nakedness, and the nice clean scent of his skin after a shower was enough to make me want to take him back to bed and get him dirty all over again. It was strong enough that I had to remind myself that he had work and I had a paycheck to collect. Nevertheless, I still had to spit out a mouthful of toothpaste before I could respond.

“Morning Sweetness.” I said, smiling up at him. “Let me wash out my mouth and I’ll give you a kiss. How much time do we have before we have to get going.”

“Her Grace isn’t expecting us until an hour from now.”

“Shit! It’s that late already. Guess there goes breakfast.”

“That’s what you think.” Andy said as I washed out my mouth and put away the toothbrush. “While you were sleeping your life away, I got us some Wawa.”

While not very nutritious, the beauty of convenience store food was a welcome appeal I couldn’t deny.

“You are the lord of all boyfriends.” I said facing him and drawing him close for a kiss. The kiss went on a little longer than was strictly necessary and it spoke of the night before. I realised that I’d been away from him for far, far too long. 

  
  


We got dressed and shoved our faces full of cheap bagel, egg, and cheese. Before finally skipping out the front door and making our way to South Street, one block over. The sunset version of this place was unbelievably different from it’s early morning counterpart. People thronged the streets making it difficult to walk without knocking into someone. Loud Reggae music blared from a nearby shop painted in the Jamaican colors, while the thick scent of patchouli oil floated out the front door. 

Erotic boutiques like the one we lived over were common among the shops, as were thrift stores, high end clothing lines, and tourist traps that sold all manner of cheap souvenir crap. One close by sported a t-shirt that I thought was supposed to read “I love Philly”. In the place where the heart would normally represent the word ‘love’ however, they had inserted the Liberty Bell picked out in sequins.

Apart from the clothing shops, the street was lined with bars of all shape, size description and clientele. A small green building was christened with the name ‘Tattooed Mom’s’. Loud punk music blared out the open air windows as its equally tattooed customers played pool. A slightly swankier place with no name on display set down into the basement of an anarchist bookshop, had very well dressed people filing two by two into it, stared at by the weary and gruff bouncer.

The last part of South Street to assault your senses, and the part that absolutely earned my love, was the smell of the street at night. Even in the winter chill, the smell of food cooking was everywhere. Kebabs, Cheesesteaks, pretzels, burgers, pizza and every manner of fried food, wafted it’s scent along the breeze to tantalize the passerby. Incense from the metaphysical shops and wicca supply shops mingled in, giving you a hint of patchouli and sandalwood before dispersing again. Every kind of cigarette smoke you could name, blew with the night wind and wound into the inextricable scent I associated with my city. 

South Street could never be all of Philly. The city was too large, too loud, too colorful; too bound to both the past and the future; Too filled with the rich and the poor. But South Street was the closest thing to a mix of all those extremes an outsider could get. I let myself be lulled into calm relaxation with the sound of the city, and even managed to smile as a boy on a light blue vespa sped by. 

I felt Andy’s giant hand, slip into mine, and I smiled up at him in his human disguise, which darkened his white hair to a chestnut brown and changed his eyes to a warm blue. I smiled back up at him, sliding closer to him, letting him slip a muscled arm around me and draw me closer. Dear sweet Maeve I love him.

We turned when we reached a large brass lion that sat in the entryway to a Buddhist book shop called “Garland of Letters”. I could hear low-key sitar music drifting through the front door, kept slightly ajar. We didn’t bother going in however. 

“Don’t-look-here?” I asked Andy who nodded and whispered something. The smell of mint and paper told me we were safe and I leaned down to whisper in the lion’s ear. “ _ And who are you, the proud lord said, that I should bend so low. Just a cat of a different coat, that’s all the truth I know. _ ”

Almost imperceptibly a ghostly voice responded from the lion’s stationary mouth.

“ _ And so he spoke and so he spoke, that lord of Castamere. And now the rains weep o’er his halls with no one there to hear. _ ”

“We’re good” I called back to Andy, who had been watching the street and shop door. He smiled at me, took my hand, and we both walked through the glass of the display window to our right.

Instead of bonking our faces stupidly against solid glass, we slid through it like it was made of vapor and found ourselves in a large open entry hall. The whole thing was made of arches of black and brown marble bricks. and the floor was a smooth wood covered in ornamental rugs. A giant hearth stood at the end of the hall flooding the room with warmth while torches in sconces lit the rest of it. 

“I need to get changed and take my post love,” Andy said nuzzling into my neck. “I’ll see you at home right?”

“You better,” I responded drawing him in for a deep kiss. “I’m not done with you yet.”

With a playful growl and a mischievous smile, he returned my kiss. He returned it with such enthusiasm that we didn't notice the approaching footsteps until someone cleared their throat.

“I’m sorry do you two need an hour or so.” At the sound of the voice, Andy immediately let go of me and snapped to attention.

“I’m so sorry your grace!” He said while I reeled trying to find my balance. 

A tall woman stood beside us, her honey blonde hair and copper colored eyes seeming to glow in the torchlight. She was slight as a willow branch which made her pointed ears look like they could pierce flesh. Her sharpened features were softened greatly by a large warm smile that lit her face. Her clothes helped a great deal. She was clad in baggy men’s jeans held up with a leather belt. She had decided to couple this with a bright red shirt depicting a golden lion superimposed over the words “Hear Me Roar”. Her stance was as proud and tall as the beast on her shirt, her posture all Tutha De Dannan warrior ready for a fight.

“Hey Astrid!” I said rushing forward for a hug. She gave it to me with a little bit of hesitancy, the Fae never quite went in for the touchy feely practices being raised by humans had left me with. It's probably one of the reasons I hooked up with a Cu Sidhe, their acceptance of people who like to hug was a big plus in their favor. And if anything I love hugs...so sue me.

“Howdy, Aidan!” She said smiling at me. “How’d it go?”

“Until the next asshole comes along, the streets are Goblin Fruit Free.”

“Good.” She smiled a relieved smile. It faded after a moment and her smile fell down into a sad, far-off look. “I hated having to turn Warrick over to the king. He was just so lost. I thought I could save him.”

Astrid was a child of Oberon, she was a hero by birth. But it’d been a long time since the last wars and she’d been born a hero in peaceful times. Lacking places to prove her mettle in battle, she seemed to think that she could make up for it by being a hero in other ways. That was how she met me. Not many people would employ a shady, barely trained fomoire, even if he was dating one of her knights. But Astrid lifted the olive branch more than any other noble I’d ever known. Hell the entry hall was even now filled with changelings looking like they’d just came in off the streets. 

Most of those kids had the telltale sign of Goblin Fruit addiction; the hollowed cheeks and visible rib cages, eyes staring off into the distance. These were Warrick’s last victims, children disowned by their fae parents and left to fend for themselves in the mortal world. It would be so easy to just disregard these kids as degenerates, but for the fact that I could have just as easily been in their place but for the kindness of my friends. 

“How’s the treatment going?” I asked seeing her watch me gazing over the kids.

“The new batch isn’t ready yet. Esther is still sitting with it.” It was only then that we noticed Andy, still standing stock still behind us. “You can relax, Andy”

“Yes, your Grace” He said relaxing visibly. “With your permission your grace, I’ll take my post?”

“Yeah you're fine Andy, Gertie should be waiting for you.”

Andy took just a tiny moment to wink at me and give me a blinding smile before dropping his human disguise and turning to run off.

“You know you struck gold with that man, right?” Astrid said arms crossed as she turned to walk deeper into the knowe. 

“Oh yeah, especially in the bedroom.” I said, smiling slyly as she peeked over her shoulder at me. Astrid made no illusions about the fact that, were Andy straight, she would have bedded and wedded him long ago. My mention of bedtime antics just highlighted what she was missing. Good thing she was well-adjusted enough to take some light ribbing. 

“I was going to feed you,” She said in a huffy faux-authoritarian voice. “But nevermind you obviously don’t deserve food.”

She strode away through the entrance hall to two large double doors that kept us from the main hall. Upon her approach the doors opened of their own accord letting the scents of a wondrous meal wash over me. It was suddenly clear why the changeling addicts were sitting in the hall. This smell would probably have made them throw up if they’d stuck around too long.

The Duchy of Hero’s Hearth was famed for several things among the local fiefdoms. Food was one of the chief among them. It was said Astrid’s father had scoured the earth looking for the best cooks he could find in Fairy and by Titania, he found them.

The main hall had a totally different vibe from the funerial entrance hall, here people bustled and moved, drinking and laughing with abandon. Almost at odds with the boisterous conversations, a somber violin sat in a corner playing itself. I recognized the slow sad notes only remotely, and I had to chuckle. Fae passions were strange and varied, but no matter what they tended to be strong and short.

“You know I really need to take away your T.V.” I chuckled. Astrid stopped fixing me with a quizzical gaze that had an edge of threat on the edge of it. “Last month Star Trek this month Game of Thones-”

“Song of Ice and Fire!” She corrected sharply before she continued on to the high table. “I read the books, the show is an abomination of the highest order! And you should just be glad I’m not into gaming like Andy! If he showed up one more time smelling like microwave pizzas and energy drink, I was going to have the other knights hold him down while I hit him with the hose.”

“Who doesn’t like the smell of microwave pizza” I said quietly. 

Astrid didn’t bother to respond, she just sighed shaking her head and sat down at a round table in the back of the hall. She immediately leaned back crossing her legs up on the table and rocking back on two legs of her chair. I was a touch jealous. The look created the perfect sense of casual confidence, given you had the preternatural grace to be able to pull it off without toppling backwards. I sat down across from her and waited for her to continue the conversation.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. Well, it was more like I felt a smallish bit of granite knock into my shoulder several times. Given the bruising, I turned to see who it was. A confusing mixture of green eyes and mottled grey and brown skin presented itself. I scooted back just a touch before I realized who I was looking at. 

“Jesus Marcus, you scared the shit out of me!” I said clutching my thumping heart and trying not to pee. 

“Sorry,” The way too deep voice responded. “I saw you and I couldn’t resist.”

Marcus, Astrid’s Senechal, was a tall man...in a manner of speaking. He was a half-human half-bridge troll changeling which meant his skin was a weird mess of regular flesh and pure rock. He can go one way or the other if he really tried but it’s way too much of a bother to keep up all the time. So most of the time he just goes around looking like a human being had been damaged and patched with cement. His human bits were rather handsome, deep dark brown skin, dark black beard and eyes the color of granny smith apples. Not to mention a voice so deep it made Barry White sound like a Japanese Schoolgirl. 

Marcus tossed something at me, then quickly took the seat next to his mistress. I caught the envelope with deft motions and flicked it open. To my avid relief there rested three hundred dollars in twenties. 

“The Rest-?” I began to ask, but Astrid cut me off.

“It’s already in your account, sent it their earlier today. I just thought you’d like some pocket money.

“So you knew?”

“Oh honey,” She said laughing. “I’m a Duchess, there's nothing in this kingdom I don’t eventually hear about and you showing up at the King’s door with a honking goose in a bag amused me immensely.”

I suppose I could have felt betrayed at the idea of being spied upon, but I had known Astrid too long to think she had meant anything other than my best interests at heart. More than likely she had her eye on me specifically to keep me from doing something stupid and winding up in a shallow grave.

“But now that we have that nasty business settled,” Astrid began, taking her feet off the table and coming down on all four chair legs with a slam. “I’ll get us fed, and then... do you want to come see the new batch Esther’s been brewing up?”

“Hell Yeah!” I called excited, hoping that this time we might have gotten a new response. We had been working for months on a cure for goblin fruit addiction. It had been something of a pet project for me, given that it required my blood to work. We were hoping the latent magic in my blood would be enough to change them and shake them of the magic inherent in the fruit. Nothing had taken as of yet but we were working with a very good Tylwyth Teg alchemist and she was confident we’re on the verge of a breakthrough. 

Two hobs came bustling out with what looked like a whole feast on a tray. Suddenly those Wawa breakfast sandwiches seemed wholly insufficient. Within seconds I was eating with with abandon, shoving the delicious home cooked meal into my gaping mouth with as much gusto as I was capable of.

“Why don’t you just transform into a pig and get it over with?” Astrid teased looking at my lack of manners askance. It struck me that she had learned her manners at the elbows of royalty and mixing with us commons still confused her.

“When I finally get the hang of full self-transformation, I’ll let you know.”

“You still haven’t mastered that?” She said leaning back and taking a hearty bite of a chicken leg.

“Listen we’re lucky I can do any magic at all given how much training I haven’t had.”

“Have you ever thought of maybe asking someone to teach you?” She huffed in a long suffering voice.

“Andy tried to teach me, but his magic is all flower magic and I can barely get a little tiny illusion to work. No one has been able to find me a teacher both sentient and protean enough to help me get transformations under control.”

“Well...” Astrid said, she had spoken just to fill the space and we both knew it. It had been a conversation we frequently had. For her, her magic was instinctual and simple. She wanted to be somewhere and she went there. Even flower magic wasn’t a problem for her. She had Oberon’s blood after all. She had no idea what it was like to not be able to find another of your race within a ten mile radius, to not have history or a storied lineage. She was a Tutha, Tutha were heroes, and heroes always got stories told about them. But monsters...well...

We finished the meal in general awkward silence. Marcus being his usual stoic self, and me not having much else to say. When we finished and the seemingly bottomless pit that was my stomach had been somewhat sated, Astrid took me out of the hall and down one of the darker hallways. They had managed to find a way to get electric lighting into this place (Don’t ask me how. I don’t know) and as a result there were very few wings of the knowe that still had that medieval darkness to it. But this wing had been overlooked apparently. Well used braziers burned on the walls giving off a dull red glow and there was dust and cobwebs in the rafters. Astrid used this wing for Esther’s experiments to basically prevent as much collateral damage as possible in the event of yet another explosion. She might have been keeping that in mind, because she knocked on the door to the lab with caution and ease.

“Come in!”

“What’s the good word, Darling” I said to the woman mixing liquids at a jarringly modern workstation. She was short and thin with hair the color of white gold. He eyes were an electric blue that almost glowed in the battery powered lanterns hung about the room.

“It’s going to be ‘castration’ if you call me ‘Darling’ again.” She had a pleasant voice when it wasn’t threatening to remove my testicles. “I’ve been working on this new batch for the last couple days. The last batch I tried ended up working for three whole days. We managed to get that poor girl to eat a decent meal and give us a smile before she started feeling the hunger again. Worst case scenario it would have to be a chronic treatment. The only problem being we would have to drain you dry to keep the changeling population sane.”

“Yeah, I prefer to avoid exsanguination whenever possible.”

“I figured as much so I ran some tests.” She placed the tubes of liquid into a holder. She moved to the other side of her desk and picked up two larger vials that she shoved under my nose. One was a mustard color, the other a pale shade of periwinkle blue. “The yellow was blood I drew before administering the last batch. It's the reaction we’d expect from normal changeling blood, a clear mix of human and fae DNA.”

“What about that one?” I asked, nodded at the blue vial.

“This is the blood I drew, three hours after administering the batch.” She said smiling. “I have no fucking idea what this means, but I can tell you one thing for certain. It ain’t human. The fae’s there but not a single drop of human DNA.”

“What does that mean?” I asked utterly shocked. Esther put the tubes back on her desk and leaned against it, staring contemplatively off into space. 

“We started this experiment with the idea of using the transformative magic in your blood to change the magic of the addiction, but it’s done something else.” She looked maddeningly excited. “It’s changing them on a cellular level and for a short period of time, it's making them something other than half human. The Fae in their blood can resist the change, but the human DNA has no such defense. And it’s enough. It’s confusing the magic of the goblin fruit enough that the addiction can’t keep up.”

“But what is it transforming them into?” Astrid asked. “If they're not half human what do they become half of?”

“Couldn’t tell you” Esther said, picking up a manilla folder and flicking through the documents inside. “I’ve been testing all week and this stuff is not giving me any reaction that corresponds to any animal, mineral, or vegetable we have on file. Fae and...something else is all I can give you.”

“Do they...change when you give it to them?” I asked wondering what the hell they were turning into.

“Well,” She flicked through the folder and settled on a paper. “‘Subjects showed signs of lessened addiction mentality within thirty seconds of administration. Normal hunger returned within 45 seconds. Normal brain function returned with in a full minute. Subject showed no sign of chemical addiction or mental addiction after three full minutes. Outward physiology appeared normal, no abnormal changes in vitals; pupil dilation; hair growth and color; skin color; wing speed, length and consistency. Subject was still capable of coherent speech and lucid awareness of surroundings.’ Everything was normal. We checked her over so thoroughly she’s probably still sore. Nothing physically changed about this girl except her base DNA.”

“What the fuck..?” Was all I could really manage at that point.

“‘What the fuck’ indeed!” Esther said closing her file and putting it down. “All we have to worry about now is making the change a permanent one.”

“Shouldn’t we run more tests?!” Astrid asked, clearly shocked. 

“I don’t know what testing I could do that I haven’t already done. In the short term there have been no negative effects to administering the dosage.” Astrid was looking at a complicated chemical model sketched on a chalkboard behind her. “I’ve been toying with the formula and I might be able to get it to a permanent state. But it’s going to mean...”

Esther was biting her lip, a bad sign in and of itself. She normally only looked insecure when there was some bad news coming.

“It would mean a severe collection from you...” She was giving me a look as if she expected me to refuse.

“How severe?” I asked

“Well.....if I take as much as we might need, chances are good you might go into hypovolemic shock...”

“Ah” I said quietly, contemplating. It might suck supremely, but I was in a fae stronghold and there were a couple healers within shouting distance. While it might suck to be me for a couple hours, I could save the lives of dozens if not hundreds of kids. It was definitely worth a little bit of risk for that. “Well if that's what needs to happen, just keep the healers on standby.”

I shrugged out of my jacket and rolled up the sleeve of my t-shirt just as Esther was rummaging through her desk and pulling out a comically large needle wrapped in medical packaging.

“Woah, woah, woah!” Astrid said striding in between us hands raised. “Can we not bleed out one of my employees in my basement please?”

“It’s the only way, Astrid” I said smiling at her.

“Did either one of you geniuses think to take the blood over the course of several days....you know, avoiding possible death.” 

Esther and I simply looked at each other for a moment. The idea seemed utterly obvious.

“I suppose we could do that.” Esther said simply, a note of distinct disappointment in her voice. “But it would delay the results a significant bit.”

“We have time...” Astrid had crossed her arms and cocked one of her hips, it was something she did when she wanted to show the world that she was getting her way one way or another. Esther, who was just as irascible in many ways, pursed her lips in response, logic warring with her sincere desire to proceed. Eventually she sighed, putting the giant needle back into the drawer. Before pulling out her normal medical blood-collection bag.

I’d had my blood taken before, but it’s an experience I had always hated. The tube plugged into the crook of my elbow was clear at first, but within seconds it turned a blue black as my blood pulsed with the beat of my own heart. I turned my head away. The sight of my blood was a clear sign, one of the only signs that I was indeed not human. It reminded me that in some ways, I was a monster. It felt almost like a weird out of body experience even after all these years. It wasn’t long before my head started to spin with the accustomed blood loss. Even though Esther wasn’t putting me in danger, She needs a lot even for the usual amount. I shut my eyes tighter against the sudden spinning. I could hear Esther and Astrid talking at the foot of the chair I was propped up in, but it was so hard to hear them as I started to pass out.

  
  


**4**

The room was empty when I woke up. The lantern was still lit and I could hear voices outside my room. They were lowered to harsh whispers and I couldn’t make out any words but the tone was angry and urgent. Sitting up a bit I let myself acclimate to the movement. I was still pretty dizzy and I felt weak and hungry, like I could eat for days and still not be full. Almost in answer to my whims. I spotted the plate of cookies and a glass of orange juice on the desk just a few feet away. 

“Oh good you're awake!” Andy exclaimed moving from the doorway where he’d been standing guard. The voices in the hallway stopped suddenly and two sets of footsteps beat a hasty retreat. I moved to try and take the plate but Andy moved and grabbed it for me. “Careful now. Esther took a decent amount from you. I’m under strict orders to stand guard and make sure you eat, drink and feel better.”

A cookie was then shoved unceremoniously into my mouth. I did my best to take the feeding with grace and chewed. It was too hard to talk just at the moment and I did my best to just eat the cookies without passing out again. When the plate and cup were both empty, I finally felt functional again.

“How long was I out?” I asked leaning back in the chair again, letting the food give me strength. 

“About an hour or so. Nothing really exciting happened so you haven't missed much” 

“Who was that in the hall?” I asked. Now that my head was getting on straight, I wanted to put two and two together. I just needed more information. “Was that Astrid and Esther? Did Esther get pissed because she couldn’t bleed me dry?”

“You know I can’t tell you anything I hear on guard duty!” Andy said scandalized. His outrage told me more than he realized. If it had been something innocuous like Astrid and Esther bickering, He would have smiled and nodded. But the outrage let me know I had heard something a little more important. I’d keep my ears open. 

Andy was wearing his usual guard clothes, a weird mix of old and new, leather armor and surcoat over Andy’s usual jeans and sneakers. Most of the duchies in the kingdom required the full Rennaisance get up; hose, doublet, the whole shebang. But Astrid was young and more lenient about dress and attire. It made her guards look weird but they were otherwise more equipped for their duties that most of their counterparts. Say what you like about human clothing, it’s made for form and function.

I was feeling slightly stronger so I went to stand again. Andy hovered close but he didn’t stop me. Getting upright, another wave of dizziness swept through my head, threatening to have me spilled right back down onto the chair. I managed to lock my wobbling knees in place however and stay standing. Andy had a hand on my back, ready to catch me should I fall. I managed to keep my feet and get myself acclimated to the bipedal state, when hurried footsteps came back down the hall.

Astrid came through the door like a hurricane, face flushed and eyes bright with fury. She had clearly been having some sort of heated debate and I backed up a few steps hoping she wasn’t about to unload on me for something I might have done. She stopped with hands on her hips and glared at me with eyes that seemed to burn holes in my face.

“You have a visitor.” She said, her voice a little sarcastic on the last word. 

“A visitor?” I asked utterly confused. “Who the hell would come here to see me, everyone I talk to lives here.”

“Maybe visitor was the wrong word. Should I say, prospective employer.” Her eyes widened in a flash of barely controlled rage and I thought it best to follow her out of the room, Andy at my side.

“What’s this all about?” I managed to get out, panting while trying to keep pace with Astrid, who still was tearing through her home. The knowe was starting to respond to her, doors opened violently as she passed them, and paintings tilted. 

“She just barged in here, demanding to speak with you!” She spat. “I don’t even know how she knew the password.”

“Maybe she’s been to a bookstore in the last 10 years...” I said keeping my voice low.

“She says she has a problem she needs you for, and no one else will do. I told her that you couldn’t talk right now, that you were out cold and needed your rest, but nothing would do that she speak to you now!”

It was best to let Astrid vent her frustration in these situations. It was healthier for all parties concerned. She might look like a skinny nerdy blonde but she has very few qualms about stabbing those who annoy her. Not to mention, several decades of martial arts classes have basically made her the fae equivalent of Bruce Lee. She muttered to herself all the way through the knowe, which (in accordance to her wishes to make our guest wait) took a remarkably long time. We finally emerged back into the great hall, where she nearly concussed several guards by bursting into the hall with such force, anyone with swinging distance of the doors would have gone flying. Andy and I were careful to keep out of direct reaching distance for fear of actual violence. 

She stomped over to the nearest table where a thin woman in an honest-to-goodness cloak sat at the table, hood pulled up to hide her face. She showed no outward signs of distress as an enraged Tutha came charging up the length of the hall towards her, scattering servants and guards before her. I followed despite every nerve in my body telling me that I should be running to the minimum safe distance. Andy smiled at me slyly breaking off from our little triangle of fury to head to the nearest wooden table. A gaggle of Andy’s equally gigantic brothers and sisters sat there, clearly having just finished duty and taking time to yap at each other. I turned my attention back to our destination, watching the cloaked woman with severe confusion. 

“He’s here as you requested!” Astrid snapped arms crossing, alerting any who had missed her entrance of the danger she presented. “Would you mind finally informing me as to what this is about?!”

“I’m afraid this is an issue for Mr. Locke and myself to discuss.” She had a deep voice for a woman. She was keeping it low so as to cut most of the hall out of the conversation, but I could already tell it was a voice used to commanding. 

“You are joking!” Astrid growled gripping the edges of the table as if she meant to toss the whole thing skyward. “You are in my home under my sufferance and you are about to requisition on of  _ my _ employees for a dangerous possibly deadly mission. I will know what you are sending him to do!”

I saw the woman’s mouth grimace as Astrid’s rage broke over her. 

“Very well, if you insist. But I have to warn you this matter is of the utmost secrecy.”

I took a seat next to our mystery woman, after seeing Astrid nod. She didn’t seem in any hurry to lower her hood, at least until she had clicked her fingers and the strange scents of clover and pine made a bubble around our entire table. She then felt comfortable enough to lower her hood. 

She was a rather strikingly beautiful woman, black hair that had been cut to shoulder-length curls. Her eyes were a shockingly metallic silver, contrasted oddly with her nut brown skin. She was undoubtedly Daoine Sidhe. The danger in her countenance was enough to tell me that. What’s more I thought I knew her. It wasn't so much a direct connection as a sense that I had seen her at least once before. From what I knew of the Daoine Sidhe she was probably a Countess or something, I might have seen her once or twice at a mandatory court function but I had never spoken with her.

“I apologize for the semi-literal cloak and dagger but it is imperative that as few people as possible know I’m here.” Her accent was strange and mostly faded but it had a hint of Latina to it. I suspected her family originally came from somewhere in South America. “I have come to ask you to take a job for me...”

“What kind of job?” I asked warily, she seemed utterly reluctant to get to the point which was a very bad sign. As if on cue, she looked down at the table, her silver eyes a bit overbright.

“I won’t...lie to you,” She said, her voice hardening to match her newly affected scowl. Her hands clenched in front of her and her eyes shone with fury as well as sadness now. “I have come to you because it is political suicide for anyone with any standing whatsoever in the court. If they catch someone doing this job they would most likely kill the perpetrator and any court they belong to.”

“Which is why you came to me.” I said. I was annoyed but I saw the wisdom in this woman’s words. I was largely regarded as a blunt object for situations that required bludgeoning. I was known to be open to most avenues of employ and most of the blue-bloods speculated I had very few scruples. When the majority of the populace think that your ancestors ate people, it’s very hard to convince them you have a significant moral center. Even Astrid having me on regular retainer, just meant I was an occasional thug. Politically I only represented myself in the eyes of the law. If whoever this was caught me, there would be no earth to salt. Just one more mongrel on the edge of Fairy thrown into a shallow grave. Pragmatic...if not just a touch cold.

“Yes.” She whispered and to her credit she kept eye contact with me. Not many people did that for too long. “If you get caught...I can’t have it getting back to me. If it does...”

She fell silent, her knuckles paling as she clenched her fists harder than strictly necessary. 

“Why don’t you tell me what this job actually is?”

“I need you....” She swallowed hard before continuing. “I need you to rescue my children.”

Astrid uncrossed her arms, eyes wide and horrified. All I could do was stare. Children were precious to fairy, we weren’t a prolific people. Anyone willing to hurt a child was especially crazy, and that meant that what she was saying about political suicide was almost certainly true. People snatched kids in Fairy for one of two reasons, a quick snack or political intrigue. Through my shock, however, I was finally able to remember who this woman was. 

I had seen her at the king's court a few months ago, when he’d called us all to watch a grisly public execution of a changeling who had stabbed and killed a pureblood goblin fruit dealer, desperate for his next fix. She stood straight as an arrow then, her hands positioned on the backs of her two small children who were staring at the headless corpse with terrified eyes. She was a Countess, Countess Luz Guadalupe Escobar if memory served. She had been a war hero and a famed fighter and tactical mind before retiring to raise her twin children. If she was here begging for my help, the situation was indeed dire.

“What’s happened to your children?” I asked in hushed tones. I seemed to be having difficulty getting breath into my lungs and my mind started reeling for ways to escape whatever she was about to press me into doing. Look I’m all for bravery and everything; corner a shaky changeling down a dark ally, Can do! But the type of stuff she was hinting at was  _ way  _ outside my league. This was something you needed heroes for.

“The King...” She said, throat tight with fury. “The King is looking to expand his court.”

She didn’t need to say anymore. The Royals rarely died when they recklessly marched into neighboring kingdoms. But that didn’t mean that there weren't any casualties. The gentry tended to be the first under the axe, knights and lowborn folk. Plenty of them went down during wars and fairy not being a prolific folk meant that those numbers wouldn’t rise again for years if not decades. The nobles were getting warrier and warrier about expansions these days, lest they push fairy to an early extinction.

But the king was just enough of a crazy bastard that he wouldn’t mind the risk of open warfare and the deaths of a few thousand vassals if it meant grasping a bit more power. If his court was still antsy about it, however, he was also enough of a crazy bastard to snatch their children to make sure they towed the party line.

“I’m guessing you were vocally opposed to this idea?” I said rubbing my eyes. This was almost certainly above my pay grade.

Countess Escobar didn’t say anything. She simply looked down at her hands visibly fighting the urges to both stab something and cry. Given her circumstances I would have voted for both as well. I felt myself collapse inward not really knowing what to do or say. I felt bad for the countess, I really did but I also really liked not being hunted through market street by a barely stable sadistic king and his retinue. Plus this was largely outside my skill set. Need someone punched or scared? I was your guy. Need someone to conduct some political espionage and rescue children from a madman who hates me? Not exactly my arena.

“What do you expect Aidan to do?” Astrid chimed in, blinking at the countess in wide-eyed confusion. “Kick in the front door? He’s a fomoire who can barely manage basic transformation magic, how is he supposed to navigate the King’s knowe without anyone noticing?”

I was half tempted to give Astrid shit for dumping on my abilities, but when all was said and done, she had a point.

“That’s where our opportunity arises.” Countess Escobar growled, a savage smirk on her face. “If the king had taken them to his knowe I might not be able to get at them. But he thinks that would be to obvious, so he keeps them in a warehouse on the waterfront. By trying to keep them hidden, he’s ironically made them easier to get at.”

“What, he just shoved them in the nearest warehouse?” I asked. It was such a uniquely stupid move that I couldn’t imagine why he’d do it. King Bres was many things, stupid was rarely among their number. 

“It’s a smarter idea than it sounds” Astrid sighed. “Most of the nobility would never even imagine that the king would hide his kidnap victims among the humans. Keeping them in Fairy would be the obvious thing. So they can be kept in comfort as honorable captives usually are.”

“But the king has no intentions of comfort. Their suffering will be a warning to those who do not back his ideas. He wants to make sure he has supporters for life out of his vocal dissenters.” Countess Escobar looked like she was ready to throw the table now.

“Okay,” I hissed tired already. “So what's the security like on this warehouse?”

“All we’ve been able to see from the outside are trolls but rumors say the king has hired someone particularly....creative, to make sure no one can get at the kids.”

“Who did he hire?”

“No clue.” Countess Escobar exclaimed pounding the table with her fist. “I Have whispers of someone new in the mix but nothing more.”

I felt myself sigh, there was nothing for it. I was going to take the job. I couldn’t possibly refuse, lost children were a sore spot for me. What was worse, I knew she was right. There was no one else in the city better equipped to handle this particular issue. If these kids had a chance of getting shipped back home it rested with me. I knew King Bres, he was a twisted smug bastard. There was no chance he was going to give those kids back. He might hold them in his own knowe as “fosters” but those kids would be captives until their mother died.

“I’ll do it.” I sighed. I could feel Astrid stiffen next to me as the words left my lips. The Countess Escobar visibly relaxed, her clenched fist opening and closing, stretching out the tensed muscle. “I don’t know how much I can do, but I’ll do it.”

A jewel brightness seized the countess’ eyes as she grabbed my hand, holding it tightly in both of hers. I could sense her fear bordering on terror. More than that, now that I was paying more attention I could smell the fear. It was one of my less favorable gifts but I could smell a fae creature’s fear from a mile off. It quickened my pulse as adrenaline pumped into my veins. Fomoire were natural predators, we had the response to smelling fear hardwired into our genetics. I dampened down the sudden urge to shift into my combat form and placed my other hand on top of the Countess’.

“You...you know I can’t help you? Right?” Astrid whispered, sounding small. I had never heard her sound small. She had been a friend and an employer for more than ten years and I had never heard her sound so small. “This fiefdom can’t even be slightly associated with this. And while you’re on this job you can't come back.”

Her misery was reflected in her features, delicate features downcast and the normally sharp points of her ears almost seeming to droop.

“I can't have any suspicion reflect on this court. If he catches you and kills you I can’t do anything about it. I can’t raise a hand or even my voice to stop it.”

I stood, nodding solemnly. There was nothing more to be said. I didn’t bother asking how much the job would pay. It felt gauche to ask a grieving mother how much she valued the lives of her children.

“Okay,” I grunted, Stretching my still weary body. “Let me have the address to that warehouse.”

**5**

I watched the few large guards surrounding the warehouse as they crossed paths. They had three patrols going by, two guards per patrol. I had to hand it to whoever had organized this, they were annoyingly thorough. It would be hard to impossible to get a clean shot at the door without getting spotted and if I tried to take out the guards, they were never alone long enough to be without sufficient backup. Any full frontal assault would be raucous enough that it would alert anyone inside to high-tail it before the intruders made their way inside.

I was well and truly fucked.

Unless these guys became very bad at their jobs in a hurry, there was no way I was getting in through the front door. I let myself fall to the gritty roof I’d been standing on, binoculars sitting in my lap. I was so very tired. The blood donation had done more to me than I thought. I needed to sleep and get my brain working at full capacity again if I was going to do this. Right now I was full of mission impossible theme songs and trying to find entrance through the sewer systems. Nice ideas for screenwriters, less possible in practice.

Several lilting mews made me pull my head out of my hands. Cats had followed me to the roof and were sitting watching me intently. After I had sat down and acknowledged them with a smile, the largest (an orange tabby tomcat) padded over and curled up on my lap purring as I scratched behind his ears absentmindedly. Animals tended to like me. I couldn’t say why. More often than not they were predatory animals but mortal animals sought me out when I was near and tended like sleeping on me. It was why I didn’t tend to go camping. The one time Andy and I tried it, we ended up with a family of bears in our camp, very interested in getting me to play with the cubs.

The other cats chose similar resting places along my legs and one on my shoulders. Five of them in all, weighing me down with a comfortable warmth and the constant drone of their purrs. My hands flicked to each cat in turn smiling wide as they leaned into the affection. I like animals almost as much as they liked me. I was a novelty among the Fae, something to be feared and gawked at. I was a weirdo among the humans, someone who didn’t quite fit and their instincts screamed to avoid. But animals never question, never mocked, never derided me. 

“They like you.” A voice was not too far away. Male, reasonably deep, and an accent caught somewhere between German and Swedish. I looked frantically around, the cat on my shoulder giving me a small retaliatory yowl as I nearly dislodged him. There was a person crouching on the ledge of the roof on my right. He was slim, with athletic muscle clearly displayed by his lack of shirt. His hair was shaggy and black, patches of white irregular along his mane. His ears were the biggest clue. They were long cat’s ears covered in black fur and tufted at the ends. Cait Sidhe, undeniable so. I couldn't make out too much of his face, he was backlit by one of the tall street lights surrounding the waterfront. All I could really see was his eyes, an eerie almost luminous shade of yellow.

“Um,” I stammered, looking him up and down, wondering when in the hell he got there. “Hi?”

“Greetings and Salutations.” He rumbled, dandelion yellow eyes fixed unmoving on my face. “You are a Friend to the Cats?”

“I...uh..I try to be.” I said unsure. He pronounced the words like a title and I didn’t know if that was the way he meant it.

“This land’s Monarch, have they acknowledged you?” 

The Court of Warring Cats was the local Caith Sidhe fiefdom and they lived up to their name. They inhabited the alleyways and deserted textile factories that dotted the city, as well as much of Fairmount Park, and they  _ did not _ like visitors. With King Bres in their backyard I didn’t blame them. Their king was not known to any but his own subjects. He was called simply “The King of Cats” in local circles.

“I...uh..Haven't had the pleasure of meeting him.”

Sniffing noises emanated from the shadowy newcomer. Cat-like he crawled toward me on all fours. As he shifted away from the light I could finally see his face. He was cleaner than his animalistic nature would bely, his face a single shade of alabaster white. His beard was longer than one might normally see but not yet approaching Gandalf levels of length. Like his hair it was black with spots of white. The face itself was angled, reminiscent of the feline in the sharp shape of his jaw and angle of his eyes. Fangs poked out over his lower lip, giving him a faint eerie cast to his all too predatory grace.

“You are of the mountains, marshes, and seas.” It wasn’t a question. “Children of your line are monsters to the lines of Titania and Oberon, but always friends to the cats.”

He was barely a foot away now, displaying a cat’s awareness of personal space. His nostrils dilated as he sniffed. 

“Cool?” I said, utterly baffled. How the hell did you talk to a wild Caith Sidhe who randomly shows up out of the blue. “I’m Aidan, Aidan Locke”

It took the Caith Sidhe a while to speak, he studied me and sniffed for at least another minute.

“I am Einar,” He followed that up with a string of words in a language I didn’t know. “Who is your original Maeve-kin?”

Of all the weird cryptic shit he’d said this question, at least, I could answer. Not well but I knew what he was saying.

“I’m Fomoire, I don’t know the name of my Firstborn.”

“Have the Monster People forgone their history?” He asked this as simply as if he were asking about the weather, but his pupils reduced to thin slits. 

“I don’t know?” I stated bluntly. I was angry, It added a chilly cast to my tone. When people called me a member of the ‘Monster People’ it rarely ended with them being nice and understanding. “I’m an orphan, if I see another Fomoire, I’ll ask.”

For the first time since I’d been watching him, Einar’s face changed. It split into a wide grin and he punched me, full on frat boy punch of camaraderie, on the shoulder.

“You have spirit, Aidan Locke!” He announced as I tried not to rub my shoulder. The cat who had perched there yowled and batted the air towards Einar, a warning not to try that again. “What brings you to the high-places this Evenfall?”

The way he spoke was so strange. At first I put it down to English being his second language, but the more I listened the more he seemed to speak like he was pronouncing each statement. He spoke in titles and very proper names. It was a language one heard from those in Fairy lost to time. Those who couldn't relate to a world where time was limited and we didn’t have enough to give every rock and tree their proper names and titles. He was old, I was starting to be certain of that. I knew almost nothing about Caith Sidhe but they were an old race and not prone to poking their noses into investigating everyone who stopped to pet the cats. 

“Looking out on the river” I lied quickly schooling my face into an impassive mask. I was good at lying, hell I’d been partially doing it to myself for 20 years. “Helps me relax.”

“You do so with spy glasses?” He asked. One of the larger tomcats was batting playfully at the binoculars in my lap.

“Not usually, I just keep those out of habit. But then I noticed the big slabs over by the warehouse over there. They piqued my curiosity.”

“Ah,” The Caith Sidhe sighed, eyes leaving my face for the first time in minutes. “Yes indeed the protector of this place has either erred in keeping his intentions below notice, or has endeavoured to make his intentions clear. Such a display of force, it sends strong messages with those who possess the sense to hear.”

His yellow eyes flicked to the side, locking on me once again. He cut a frightening silhouette. Too still, too tense, he didn’t even seem to need to blink. I could feel something in the back of my mind telling me to get the hell away and do it now. But Einar didn’t pounce, the moment of tension passed. He flowed gracefully up onto the ledge once again, perching like goddamn Batman. 

“I like you Aidan Locke, So I offer you my counsel.” He stood, it was impressive to see him, tall against the backdrop of the night sky. The lights behind him shadowed his face again and all I could see were the yellow circles of his eyes. “Do not return. This is not a situation for your curiosity.”

Without further ado, he promptly jumped off the ledge. I let out a shout as I sprung to my feet, dislodging vocally upset cats. Reaching the ledge, I looked down, expecting to see a red splotch on the ground. I saw nothing. The tan of the sidewalk below was unbroken. 

“The Fuck?!” I cried, the mewling cats creating an interesting backdrop for my distress. A tingle of fear sped up my spine and I spun to look in all directions. Could the Caith Sidhe teleport? I had no idea. My interactions with them had been entirely limited. I saw nothing and no one but the cats. I could feel my magic fill my body, begging to start my changes. The itching on the back of my hands told me the transformation into my battle form had already begun. Marsh and Hazelnut scents filled the air as my magic bubbled up. I beat it back down, forced the scales to reform into human skin, focused all my will on remaining calm. It was a significant effort. 

What the hell had just happened? Who was that? And was I losing it, or was almost everything he said a veiled threat? I didn’t like being intimidated, given who and what I really was it was pretty hard to do. But when it occasionally happened. I fucking hated it. But Einar had managed to do it with almost no effort, who the hell was he?

There was a low yowl at my feet and I looked down to see one of the cats giving me a disgruntled look.

“Oh, Um...sorry.” I murmured not really knowing how to apologize to cats. The limp murmur did not mollify the circling felines and I slumped down to the ground so they could resume their climbing all over me. 

Several hours later after the cats had gotten bored and I had felt sufficiently less cagey. I drove back to the apartment in utter dejection. The place was still a fortress and no amount of sitting there and glowering was going to help matters. I needed sleep and a meal the size of Alaska before I could continue beating my head against the wall. 

Andy was still on duty when I got home, leaving me to putter around the kitchen, slapping whatever leftovers I could find into a passable dinner. I...didn’t do cooking. My experiments had led to our usually very lenient landlady barring me from ever attempting legitimate cooking ever again after the acrid smell of burnt plastic had to be shampooed out of the hallway carpet. Hence I was not allowed to make anything that didn’t come with cooking instructions on the box.

While munching on frozen pizza and ancient Chinese food I tried to flex my brain and get myself an answer to my dilemma. Nothing doing however, wracking my brains produced nothing but a headache. I languished on the couch, fighting sleep for as long as I possibly could. Maybe if I lay here keeping my protesting eyes open, something would hit me.

I was asleep within fifteen minutes.

The marshes were different this time. There was still the unmistakable scent of bog and decay, but the trees were pines this time, rather than willows. Moreover I knew where I was this time. The Pine Barrens were a quirk of geology that spanned a large portion of central New Jersey. They were the closest thing we had to a swamp this side of the Mason Dixon line. They were close to the wetlands of southern New Jersey, full of sandy acidic soil that resisted all but the wildest plants and animals. 

I had always loved these forests. The Lockes would go this way for summer vacations in Wildwood and Cape May. It was a place where the wildest Fae kept their knowes. Creatures descended from Maeve, born of the water and the dark. They had inspired millions of stories to frighten human children. Most notably, tales of the Jersey Devil, who apparently dwelt in these very woods. 

No devil waited for me however. Just the woman in the black dress once more. She had her arms crossed in a gesture of utter impatience as if I had kept her waiting. 

“So you did come back.” She stated, as if she was tucking the info away for later. 

“I guess I did.” I said waiting for her to give me something to work with. When she just stood there staring at me I extended my hand. “Aidan Locke”

She smirked and moved to meet me. She slapped a hand into mine and shook it. I repressed a shudder as I felt her skin. She felt cold and subtly moist, like something long waterlogged. 

“They call me the Sea Witch.”

“They must not like you very much.” I joked trying to keep things light. I expected her to snarl or roll her eyes. To my surprise she let out a short bark of laughter.

“You have no idea.” She eyed me up and down, really appearing to take me in. “So you don't know who your parents are?”

“Nope! I was left at an orphanage.”

She looked conflicted. Like she wanted to one thing but needed to do another. 

“How much of your magic do you know.”

“Almost nothing” I uttered. “I don't know of any other Fomoire to teach me.”

“Fuck.” She nibbled at the end of one fingernail with teeth like a shark. Finally she stamped her foot and looked me full in the face. “You can't go around half trained. That's a good way to fuck up and get yourself killed and there are too few of my brother's children left. You're going to come back here tomorrow night and we'll start your training there. I don't have time tonight. Now go back home. Your dog is shaking you.”

Distantly I could feel a slight rocking sensation but it seemed almost apart from me. The Sea Witch was walking off into the pines without looking back. The Pine needles swallowed her up and filled my view until all I could see was black. 

“AIDAN!” I awoke to someone screaming in my face and the sensation of a palm the size of New Hampshire slapping into my right cheek. 

“Fuck me running!” I screamed holding my face trying not to look at the lights dancing around my eyes. A small plaintiff whine let me know Andy was close by. 

“Are you okay?!” he said trying to look me in the eyes as much as he could. “You weren't waking up I thought you'd been Elf Shot!”

“I'm fine, I'm fine.” I moaned trying to smile while holding my face at the same time.

“I'm sorry I hit you.” he said to the floor sounding positively miserable. 

“It’s okay, baby” I said cradling his head and bringing it to my chest, trying to reassure him. “I would have hit me too if I wasn’t waking up.”

“What happened. I was screaming and screaming, but you just laid there. I tried finding where the arrow was but I couldn’t find anything.”

“I had a dream?” I was confused about it myself. It seemed like a dream, the handprint on my face was proof enough that I hadn’t gone anywhere. But the smells and sounds, they felt way too real. It wasn’t hazy and vague like my other dreams, it was crisp and clear and I could remember everything that happened. I could hear her saying the words ‘one of my brother’s children’ and I felt utterly confused. Who was she? She didn’t seem like she was Fomoire, but then again that was our own gift. To not look like the monsters we were.

  
  
  


6

The following evening went much the same. Staking out the warehouse gave away nothing new. It didn’t look like they were bringing in food or anything like that. Nothing I could use to my advantage, and any chance of brute forcing my way through just seemed like an elaborate way to commit suicide. It bothered the hell right out of me. How in the hell were they feeding those kids? How were they keeping them so quiet. Elf Shot seemed the simple answer but it was drastic. Then again it made perfect sense for a maniac who was prepared to kidnap the kids and never really intended to give them back.

My Caith Sidhe friend failed to show, but the cats weren’t long in returning. Their loud consistent mewling prevented me from staying out as long as I wanted. Any more cats screaming at full volume and I might as well just hop down and start throwing punches. I abandoned my post in despair. This was starting to seem impossible.

When my car pulled into its normal parking lot, I hadn’t expected to see many people. It was closing in on 5am and even the most dedicated drunks would be making their stumbling ways home. What I was not expecting was a trio of cats clustered on my stoop looking at me expectantly. The first one to approach me was a thickly muscled pure grey cat with carnival glass green eyes. It sat primly in front of me wrapping its tail around its feet. Its fellows wandered off to either side of me. The one to my left, was not the typical house cat, it was a Savannah Cat. She was lithe and graceful with golden fur spotted with black, a black stripe down her back. The other was a large ginger tom cat with long shaggy fur. They were flanking me. My hindbrain recognized the maneuver and let the rest of me know I was in deep shit. They were cutting off my escape routes, and this more than anything let me know who I was dealing with.

“Am I in some kind of trouble?” I asked the grey cat in front of me. She nodded solemnly and looked over to the nearest alley. I took her meaning and followed her to the deserted alleyway. As I walked into the brink enclosure, I could smell a quick hint of musk. Looking behind me, I say two people where the flanking cats used to be. A thin dark-skinned woman with intricate gold and black spotted dreads stood next to a tall shaggy haired ginger man. They both had long cat’s ears that mimicked their cat forms.

“So, you’re the monster huh?” A light jovial voice commented behind me. I turned to see a young woman sitting on the lid of the nearest dumpster. She, like her fellows bore the unmistakable signs of her cat nature. Her hair was slate grey like the cat had been. She was built like an MMA fighter, thick muscle coating every limb. Her ears were the same as her cat form and her eyes were still the same unnatural carnival glass green. “Got to say, I expected you to be...threatening?”

“What can I say,” I snarked, not entirely appreciating the Brute Squad routine. “I’m just a nice guy.”

I heard the two behind me move before I saw it in my periphery. It happened before I thought too hard about it. My body shifted, coating itself in midnight black fur. Ivory claws erupted from my fingertips and fangs burst from my jaw. I spun ducking underneath the blows that came from behind. The Ginger man stumbled forward awkwardly. I could tell he wasn’t used to missing his target. I reached out effortlessly and grabbed the back of his neck. I saw the girl with the dreadlocks start forward and before she could take a step my body moved. I had her up off her feet and pinned to the wall before I realized what I was doing.

When my battle modes come on me, it’s like being taken over. Instinct and reaction drive me forward and every aggressive chemical biology has ever produced filled my body with murderous rage. That was the only explanation for why I drew so close to the girls face as to see myself reflected in her eyes and roaring as hard as I could. It was horrifying to hear. The only thing comparable was a tiger’s roar and a human scream combined. Her eyes went wide as I drew close and I could see the black canine maw jutting from my face. Suddenly I was back in control and horrified. I looked over to the woman still casually sitting atop the dumpster.

“Call them off, or I’ll have two fancy new coats!” My voice was a hissing growl, it reminded me of an alligator more than anything else.

“There he is!” The woman on the dumpster remarked. “That’s enough kids, I’d hate you to get tanned and made into boots.”

She sounded like she was watching her favorite TV show. She hopped down off the dumpster and stretched just a bit, showing off the cords of muscle.

“Uncle.” The shaggy man hissed, eyes wide as the claws on the back of his neck drew a single bead of blood. Quickly, I released both of my captives and took a step back keeping all three of them in view.

“Calm down slugger, it’s just to make sure you’re worth the effort. No more horseplay I promise.”

The three fell into step, forming a tight triangle. They tried to look relaxed but I could see the tension in their legs. They were prepared to move if I did.

“What do you want?” I growled, I still didn’t feel safe enough to shift back

“You need to come with us, Sugar.” The grey-haired one smiled wide and walked slowly toward me. I held my ground and she extended her hand. “I’m Talia.”

When I did not shake her hand she snorted and nodded. Rolling her eyes she turned back to me and then smirked.

“I do so swear by the Oak and Ash, by Root and Thorn, by The Rowan and the Rose, that no harm shall come to you by me and mine until we reach our destination or until you pose a sufficient threat as to threaten our lives.”

“That is the most loopholes I’ve ever heard in a statement.” My fur was fading, claws shrinking back into my flesh and I forced my human form back over myself one more time.

“That’s Fairy, my dear monster. Shall we go?” The three cats strode past me, applying human disguises as they went. My gut was still unsure. I wanted to just go back home and escape this espionage bullshit. With a much more human growl, I followed them out of the alley and back to my car, on which they were all leaning.

“What am I your chauffeur now?” I shot at Talia.

“We got here on the Shadow Roads kid. And as cute as you are, I’m not allowed to take you there. So…”

She mockingly opened the driver’s side door and gestured me toward it. Rolling my eyes, I slid into the driver’s seat. I did my best to ignore the two silent Caith Sidhe in my back seat and the one all too talkative one in the passenger seat.

“Aidan Locke…” She looked at me askance her bulky form adjusting as she tried to get used to the car seat. I could tell at least one of them was old. The woman with dreads in the back seat looked like she was about to pounce, clearly never having traveled by car before. “Y’know I’ve never met a Fomoire. I’ve heard they were good but that was impressive.”

“Oh joy, now I can die happy.” I deadpanned, starting the car and waiting for further instruction. “So… where are going?”

“You know the big old mill down by the river? Head there.”

“I suppose you’re not going to tell me why?”

“You’ve made some…interesting friends in recent nights, Mr. Locke. As such, you have attracted the attention of the King of Cats.”

In an instant I knew who she meant by “interesting friends”. There was really only one person she could mean. Einar. I still wasn’t entirely sure why a brief conversation merited this nonsense but they had definitely piqued my interest. The King of Cats did not poke his head above ground often. When he did people tended to die. No one I had ever spoken too knew his face. 

“What should I know about this King?” I asked, keeping my voice even.

“You should know he doesn’t suffer fools, doesn’t indulge people’s idiocy and obfuscation, and above all else despises lies. Be honest, forthright, and respectful and you may survive.” 

Talia’s eyes were serious now. The human disguise had blunted the green of her eyes, but they were just as intense. She never took her eyes off me, and if the prickling on the back of my neck was any guide the other two were doing the same. 

“Does he have a name?”

“Yes” Talia smirked as if we were playing a guessing game and I was losing. 

“Do I get to know it?” I sighed.

“If he wants you too.” 

“Fine. Can I at least know the names of Curly and Moe back there?”

“I am Baldur” The ginger said shaking a bit of hair out of his eyes.

“Goya” The Woman with dreadlocks responded. She was still as stiff as she could make herself. Resisting every movement of the car as much as possible. She had an accent but I couldn’t quite place it. 

The rest of the drive was mostly silent as I took us north towards the Delaware River. Philadelphia had once been an industry city, which of course meant that the many things we produced polluted the river to the point of toxicity. Eventually the industry left, leaving a riverbed scarred not only with the debris of centuries but also abandoned brick structures of monstrous proportions. We made our way to one of these, executing a barely passable parallel park job out in front of an ancient red brick building. There were a few shops and signs of life here, a Psychic on one corner, a chicken place further down the block. Largely, however the area was deserted. 

They instant we parked, Goya shot out of the car like a shot heading toward the building at prodigious speed. Baldur moved more sedately and Talia, not at all. She stayed put until I had gotten out of the car and began to make my way toward the building. The door was little more than plywood, covered in ads for rappers, strip clubs, and punk rock flea markets. Baldur held it open for me, Goya no longer in sight. 

The inside of the building was dark, not pitch black but all the windows were boarded up preventing a majority of the light from coming through. I had trouble seeing for the first few minutes until my magic rose around me and I felt the matter of my eyes shifting to accommodate the darkness. The world went mostly grey but I didn’t need much in the way of color. I could hear the cats crawling all around me, even when I couldn’t see them. They slunk in and out of my periphery, lithe shapes in the darkness.

Most of the cats were picking their way over trash and the remnants of the homeless who had spent the winters here. They were walking toward the far end of the factory floor toward what looked like a throne. Judging by the garland and Christmas lights on the arms of the seat, it seemed to have been pilfered from a department store Santa. So many cats lounged around the seat that it was difficult to see how one might approach it. 

“Careful now, Slugger,” Talia whispered on the back of my neck. “Just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not here.”

I stopped walking within a reasonable distance of the throne. I didn’t feel like starting this visit off by stepping on anyone’s literal tail.

“Aidan Locke.” A voice came from all around. It was higher than I thought it would be but still intimidating enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Something about it was familiar. “You have come. This is good. We have much to discuss.”

I wasn’t well trained in etiquette, not in the courts I was usually encouraged to attend and definitely not in the secretive court of cats. I made a short shallow bow and then proceeded to look around the room trying to find the source of the voice.

“How polite.” The voice was thick with derision. The barest hint of an accent tinged the edges of it and I had trouble placing it. “You’ve stumbled upon a new friend I hear. Down by the river late at night?”

“I talked to a weird Cait Sidhe two nights ago, yeah?”

“What did you talk about?” 

Here I hesitated. My mission was top secret as these things went and I hadn’t intended to discuss it here. How the hell was I supposed to talk my way around this without pissing this guy off? 

“I was near the docks on a job, he basically spent a lot of words telling me to go away.”

“You were attempting to rescue the countess’s children, no?”

My innards froze. Who told them that? If this got out not only were the kids dead, but I wouldn’t long outlive them. I tensed up ready to run, this itself might be a trap. 

“Calm yourself. I have eyes in many places. But none that whisper to any ear but mine. In any case it is an open secret that your King has taken them. What good is an intimidation tactic if it’s a secret?”

There was a rustle of fabric behind me. I moved before I could think too much, my body shifting yet again. I wasn’t fast enough. A trio of white hot lines slashed through my side as I dodged, I could barely see my attacker, slim and dark skinned. They were gone before I could look twice.

“You really are very gifted Mr. Locke, but I still got a piece of you. You stand no chance against the Norseman.”

“You’re talking about Einar?” I asked clutching my side. “I wasn’t exactly planning on fighting him.”

“You sadly must.” This time the voice came not as a source less omnipresence but from a single source. Goya strode out from behind the throne head held high. “He holds your quarry, if you intend to save them, he will need to be bested.”

It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing.

“Wait…I thought…”

“You thought I was a king? In a way I am. Words are wind Mr. Locke. In my day a woman donned a golden beard and was king. I don the title and am the same.”

Talia stood behind me, not moving but letting me know through sheer menacing presence that she would be there to stop me at the sign of any sudden moves. I felt my fur bristle, shifting smoothly into those hard blue scales. My body was preparing for an all-out assault. 

“Why?” I growled in my limiting combat form. 

“Why did I pretend to be other than what I am?” Goya asked walking toward me, smooth lithe and comfortable. She could take me if she needed to, just from the way she moved I could tell. She was old. If she could be believed, she was Pyramids of Giza old. I didn’t want to try and hold my own here if I didn’t have to.

“If you are to learn from this encounter, Aidan Locke, learn the first essential step of warfare: Intelligence is always the winning factor. If your enemies do not know you, they can rarely know how to defeat you.”

“Okay…then why show yourself to me?”

She strode up alongside me, close enough that I got a good look of her deep golden eyes. Her spotted, furred ears twitched once as she reached out a clawed hand and lightly caressed my scales.

“I have watched you longer than you realize Aidan Locke.” She began to circle me. I didn’t move. If her subjects decided I was a threat to their way of life, I would die before I could finish the motion. “Even the mundane cats watch your way through the city. They smell you and know a kindred spirit. Your people and mine once knew each other very well. Both cast outs from the courts of Fairy, both deemed monstrous and savage. My people have always been sad to see the Fomoire decline. Then lo and behold, you come to my city in the hands of humans, smelling of the marshes, to become such a prodigious thorn in Bres’ side that I hear of it even in my court.” 

She finished her circles and walked back to her throne. She seated herself casually on it, draping one leg languidly over the arm of the chair. 

“You just so happened to bump into one of my old enemies, and I couldn’t let you face him unprepared. Call me…soft in my old age.”

There was a verbal twist on the word “soft” that I greatly disliked. I made what trust had been accruing vanish in a moment. She had her own reasons for arming me against this man. What those were I didn’t know but this was definitely not out of altruism or camaraderie. 

“What do I need to know?” 

I knew I had fucked up the instant she smiled at me. It was such a satisfied grin that I knew the trap had been sprung. The worst part was that I still couldn’t see the hook. 

“Down to business, I like you, Locke.” She seated herself more business-like in her throne looking me in the eye and not breaking the contact for a moment. “The Foe you face is old. He saw the Norse sail their first long ships and erect their first lodges. He is a hardened unapologetic warrior, surviving the harsh climates of the far north and the harsh temperaments of its people. He has eschewed all courts, both of my people and the Divided Courts of the Fae. He prefers life as a warrior for hire. Do not be foolish enough to come at him head on, he will kill you. Do not attempt to hide in the shadows, he will see you.”

“How am I supposed to beat him then?” My scales were melting back into skin, my claws retracting.

“Your enemy has speed, strength, cunning, but what he lacks is creativity. If you come at him in a way he cannot anticipate, it will take him too long to recover and strike. You will have one attempt to take these children and run. If you are caught or take too long, it will come to blows. And he will not stop fighting until one of you is dead. Oberon’s law be damned.”

**7**

The misty barrens rose around me as I slept I was ready for it this time. I took stock of myself and the way the dreamscape rose from the fogginess of my consciousness. Now that I was more aware of what was happening, I could see that I was in my natural form, I felt my fangs in my mouth and the indigo tattoo on the back of my hands stood against the pale skin. My bare feet sunk into the wet and sandy soil, but there was no chill. I felt completely at home. Never had I felt more at home in the cities I’d been born to. Not among friends or colleagues. But here among the mist and barrens and the pines, I could feel something like security and safety.

“Good your already here.” The raspy voice rang out behind me. Again the young woman in the black dress stood. Her face was more neutral, not quite as hostile and ready to pounce. She was appraising this time, sizing him up from a distance. “How much change can you manage?”

“Right to business, I guess.” I sighed.

“Do NOT test me!” Her eyes went from a normal human brown to a pure black darker than the depths of the sea. “You cannot know this so I will warn you once! I am not in the habit of helping people, not for free. The rules don’t let me do things like that and in truth even doing something as simple as give you basic information about your magic will put you in my debt. I can set the price as low or as high as I want and if you try my patience, I will bleed you dry!” 

The implication was dire. The fae dealt with obligation in a very different way than humans did. Promises and debts were meat and mead to faery and where humans might be able to walk away with nothing but a twinge of guilt, the fae had it a little bit harder when it came to walking away from our debts. It would be very stupid to get myself in debt with a woman who I didn’t know and slightly feared. She said people called her “the sea witch”. You didn't earn a name like that in fae circles without living up to it in some capacity. 

“I’m sorry,” She sighed, I watched the humanity bleed back into her eyes. “You don’t deserve that. You have no idea who you're dealing with and I haven't given you any reason to be afraid of the rules that bind me. Know that I am a busy woman and maybe patience isn’t always my crowning virtue.”

“I can do that,” I whispered. “You can do the same thing I can do?”

“Not quite. We’re both children of Maeve. Some of us closer than others, but still water magic is strong in our blood. Water magic is the magic of shape and form and shifting changes, the magic of ebb and flow of reality. Some of Maeve’s children can change the properties of the objects they combine to make something new. Some can make pockets in the world to build their own spaces. Some can ever heal the broken bodies of others. But you and your people can change the shapes you were born with. You can borrow the claws and fangs of the natural world and use it to your advantage. The mixing and matching of forms gave your ancestors a frightening appearance to more ‘civilized’ fae.”

Her voice dripped with sarcasm on the word “civilized”. I realized she was talking about the children of Titania without having to really think about it. We shared that distaste then. I couldn’t imagine what someone like her had dealt with. She didn’t look like she would have trouble hiding amongst the nobles and purebloods, but the weariness in her tone told me all too well that she had been through enough to be done with the world’s shit.

“So to start with, How much change can you manage?”

“I can make myself look like a human, and I have a couple fighting forms. One built for speed and dodging, one to take hits.”

“Good your instincts will cover both of those, if you can learn to do the fighting forms intentionally that will be a big step. Now have you found your Forms Three?”

“My what?” The woman stopped for a moment irritation writ large across her features. It couldn’t be helped, I didn’t know what I didn’t know and could only learn by asking.

“Your people had the ability to take many shapes but they had a specific set they called their “Forms Three”. It was more or less a rite of passage when a Fomoire child discovered them. One for land, one for the sea, and one for sky. They were the shape of beasts that would lend them power and prowess over those three realms.”

“This sounds like they were specific animals, not just the weird composite thing my fight forms look like.”

“You know you’re not entirely stupid when you work at it.” She smiled wanly at me. “Yes, three specific forms a fomoire would take until death took them or life changed them.”

“How do I find mine?” I was too eager, I could hear it in my voice. Inwardly I felt embarrassed for myself. Desperate for this stranger to give me anything that would help me puzzle out my abilities just a little bit more. Anything that would put me on an even footing with the other fae around me.

“Calm yourself” Her voice was gentle now. Maybe it was the open need in my voice. “It’s something that takes time. You need to find the shapes inside yourself. These forms are already apart of you. Like most children of Maeve, you’re tied to the world in an intrinsic way. And Balor’s children were always attached to the beasts of the world. Somewhere deep inside you your other forms are waiting. You just have to find them.”

She raised her hand and the path they were on cleared of most of the mist. I could see the trees better, still sturdy pine in sandy soil. Still visibly the pine barrens. But now I could see the shape of the road we were on. Not the sprawl of the wasteland I knew, but a deliberate path one could follow.

“These are the Marsh Roads. They were given to Balor to keep and maintain and to his descendants to use. They are yours by right.” She pointed off in the distance. Shadows danced at the edge of the mists and I could barely make out the swish of a tail or the flap of a wing. “You will be the first Fomoire to find their shapes this way in over five hundred years. But it is the fastest surest way to find them. Just be careful. These roads are old and not as maintained as they once were. You’re only here in spirit but there are still dangers here. Things too old to name and too hungry to take lightly.”

I felt my feet beneath me move. The Sea Witch fell away behind me, I could barely feel her presence anymore. The smell of the sea was fading to nothing and subtly changed to the smell of fetid water and dying vegetation. The Pine Barrens faded behind me and before me the sight of a strange misty moor filled my vision. I had never been to this place before, but I felt like I had seen it. In my dreams if nothing else. The strange sensation of comfort, of coming home, intensified. The dark shapes in the mist weren’t frightening in that moment. They were potential and it filled me with a feral glee.

I chased them, I had no other recourse. My natural form, the form I almost never wore was powerful, fast and strong and well adapted to the low vision. I followed my quarry by the sound of flapping wings, or ragged breaths. I followed the scent of feathers and fur and flesh. I caught nothing for hours and hours. The shapes were fast and cruelly cunning. Still I persisted. I had never felt so alive, full of cunning and speed and a predator’s instincts turned loose. This moor was my ground by rights, this world belonged to me by blood and I could hunt here until the dawn woke me. 

There three shapes before me! I saw them, they didn’t run or hide. They stood proud in the mist, only the faintest hint of their full shapes was revealed and my curiosity spurred me onward. There was a deep throaty growl, a distant shriek of a bird of prey, and a small sound that could have been the movement of water. They spoke to me. They called me. They wanted me to find them!

Light slammed into me like a physical force and I screamed with confusion, rage, and sudden fright. I couldn’t move my limbs for a moment and panic forced my magic to flood around me, there was a small change to the scent, the marsh water filled the room barely hinting at the hazelnuts and I was suddenly in my shark scale fighting form. My claws rent at the bindings on my hands and arms and I was rewarded by the sound of ripping fabric. Without warning I was falling. 

The instant I hit the ground I stopped panicking. I was home, in my bedroom and no longer lost in mist. The bed linens lay in ribbons all around me and long claw marks exposed the inner workings of the mattress. Worst of all was Andy, pressed against the wall, breathing like a bellows. He looked at me with stark terror and I suddenly realized what I’d done. I had been asleep for less than an hour, though it felt so much longer in the dream. Andy and I had decided to call it an early day after my coming home from the court of cats. I was supposed to sleep off the dawn influence and return to meet Astrid. 

Once my panic was gone, my form slipped back to my more natural fomoire shape. Andy relaxed marginally. He had never seen me in my fighting form, I realized. He had never had an opportunity. Whenever I was in a scrape, Andy was usually at work, far away from the frightening visage of my blue scales and shark’s teeth.

“I’m so sorry, baby!” I pleaded hands raised defensively. “I’m so so sorry I had a bad dream and I woke up and I must have been tangled in the sheets-“

It wasn’t doing much to calm him I could see. His eyes were still as wide as dinner plates and his hands held a slight tremble. He had been roused from a deep slumber to the sounds of growling and ripping fabric to find a monster in his lover’s place on the bed. The fact he hadn’t tried to kill me on the spot was a credit to his composure. But that didn’t mean the incident wasn’t traumatizing. 

“It’s okay,” He eventually said, turning his back to me and sitting shakily on the edge of the bed. “I’ve just never seen…that.”

“Yeah sorry, that’s…um…that’s my fighting form.”

The silence was frosty. I saw the shape of things and they were breaking now. He had convinced himself that I wasn’t a monster, that despite all my warnings that I wasn’t what the legends and rumors said I was. And now he had proof, unavoidable proof that I was a monster. He would hate me now, run from me. I would be all alone now and nothing I did could erase the moment just after dawn. 

“That was scary!” Andy called. He took a deep breath and stood to pull me into a rib-cracking hug. “No wonder nobody in the kingdom wants to piss you off. Sorry you had a bad dream though.”

“What?” Light came back to my world in a rush. He wasn’t leaving, wasn’t running. Andy was looking into my eyes with a fierce love and I forgot everything else. I was like being filled with sunlight and being allowed to float several inches off the floor. 

“I get that you have quirks,” He whispered, pulling me close and whispering to the top of my head. “We all have little gifts from our ancestors. Do you think it's easy being this muscular and good looking?”

Cu Sidhe were a simple folk and above all else, they were loyal. But the fact that he still loved me and was trying to get me to laugh off the situation was more than I could ever put into words. I snuggled closer into his chest and closed my eyes. I had been in the mists of the Marsh Road. I had been so close. I think I caught something. I couldn’t remember. 

“I would suggest we go back to bed.” Andy shifted to look at the ruined mattress. “But I don’t think that would work with the way things are.” 

In the end we flipped over the mattress, laying on the other side. We decided to not bother changing the sheets just yet. We would handle it all when we woke up that evening. I settled against Andy, letting the heat of his body calm me down. It was an ever-present reminder that he was by my side. 

**8**

Astrid’s fingertips beat a tattoo on the table. The slow insistent rhythm was driving me mad. The three of us sat in a nearby creperie, in utter silence as the Countess processed the information we laid out before her. I had laid out all the relevant details, including the warning Goya had given me. I hadn’t been able to tell them who Goya was in truth but the warning had been passed on regardless.

The Countess blinked at me from across the table. She hadn’t seemed receptive to the situation when I had started but the more I layered on the wackiness, the less cohesive her thoughts seemed to become. She blinked twice slowly as she raised a shaking hand to her forehead and leaned heavily on the table. I chanced a glance at Astrid. She wasn’t looking nearly as bad but she still didn’t look happy.

“So what are we talking about in terms of planning?” Countess Escobar sat up straight and tried to push away her apparent distaste. 

“Welp, if my informants in the Court of Cats is to be believed, we need to find a more stealthy way to get into the warehouse.”

“That's all we do, wait and keep looking?” Her fear was being replaced with anger. She was gripping the edges of the table and I started thinking I should be scooting back to avoid getting a table in the face.

“Yes,” I tried to keep my tone light, trying to will her to be calm if nothing else. “Because if I can kick in the front door and get myself killed, they will move the children somewhere new and your best shot to get them back goes down the toilet.”

I watched her visibly deflate after that. She just about collapsed against the table and I felt myself stepping forward to prepare to catch her. Astrid’s arm snaked out and caught me before I could move a single step. Her eyes were dangerously bright and she was watching the countess pick herself up. There was something going on between the two women I didn't quite understand, but the situation was cold and serious to a point that I didn’t want to move. Eventually the Countess’ eyes began to burn brighter and brighter, she sat back up in her chair. 

“So! If that is what it is, then we shall do what we must.” It was semantically null. I felt the need to say something but I kept my mouth shut. 

“I’m going to be keeping my eyes out for any opening. I promise that I will make this happen.” I was trying to project confidence. I wouldn’t have any choice now. But she still managed something close to a smile. It had to happen.

  
  


I found a different roof to perch on today. It didn’t offer as much of a vantage point as my first choice had, but it still gave me enough of a view of the doors that I could keep an eye out for openings. The guard was as constant as always, but still no sight of Einar. I supposed that was a good thing. After his and Goya’s warnings I doubted our next meeting would be a pleasant one. Yet even though I hadn’t seen him or any other living thing around, I felt the unmistakable sensation of eyes on me. 

The sun was well down by this point and the sensation was only growing stronger. I was getting antsy and still nothing was getting done. I was just thinking about calling it a night and heading home when I heard a scrape of gravel on the roof behind me. I spun around, my magic rising. Nothing was there. Just empty air and open rooftop. I turned back around to the warehouse, when a grip with the force of an industrial vice clamped down on my head. In a second I was yanked off my feet and wrapped with my arms trapped at my side. I caught a brief impression of skin the color of granite and a massive form before I was being forced to look straight at Einar.

“I did warn you, Aidan Locke.” He walked slowly towards me ears flicking, belying his excitement. His face was still as painted marble, but his ears and tail were bouncing back and forth. “It is a shame to see a fine potential like yourself. You could have been a fabulous warrior given time.”

Before much more could be said, the troll gripping my body started moving back towards the edge of the roof. As the tips of my boots scraped across the ground I started to realise what the psycho had planned. I tried harder than I thought I could against the pressure pinning my arms, kicking against the grip. It felt like I was kicking pavement for all the good it did. 

“Don’t do this!” I screamed, both to my physical captor as well as the man in front of me. “You don’t have to do this!”

“You know, I find it cliche to say ‘Oh but I do’...” Einar paused his face breaking expression for the first time, cracking into a wide smile. His teeth were too long, too pointed even for a caithe sidhe. “But in this case the cliche is true. I simply must my dear man, I have a reputation to uphold. Once, twice, and thrice said, Farewell and goodbye.”

There was a horrible lurch, like the world being thrown out of whack. Suddenly my arms and legs were free and I was falling. The air rushed around me and I lost all sense of direction as I began hurtling out of all control. Then abruptly my sense of what was happening to me snapped back into sharp relief. I was watching the street below hurtle up towards me and my arms were flapping pointlessly against the insistent pull of gravity. The fear hit me before anything else did. Cold, primal, heart-stopping fear. It tore out through my throat without my control or conscious intent.

The second sensation to hit me was my magic surrounding me in a cloud of marsh water and hazelnuts. It took me back to the willow forest surrounded in mist. I saw the shapes in the mist, heard their cries, remembered my sprint into the marshes looking for the pieces of myself that were waiting to be found there. I had found something there, just before the light of dawn hit me with a physical force. I felt the form fill my consciousness, wings the size of the sky. I could hear its cry as its power filled me from tip to toes. The magic without me having to decide what to do, was acting. I could feel my body shift, bones becoming light, skin giving way smoothly to feathers, and my face both shrinking and elongating into a sharp curved beak. 

I was almost to the ground when the change that had asserted itself began to make the new form work for itself. I felt tailfeathers adjust and minute changes in my wings, a sudden flap of the wings and I was soaring up and over the asphalt, a hair's breadth away from death.

The wings caught the air coming off the river and lifted me high. The buildings fell away below me, the sky yawning in front of me. It was bliss in a way I can’t describe. The air whispered to me a song of belonging so complete that I let out my own raptorial cry in response. It didn’t sound harsh to whatever ear equivalent birds have, it sounded like rejoicing and triumph. I rose out of my dive and back towards the city. Flying over the building I had recently been thrown off of, I saw Einar. His face was cold and blank but his ears flicked and his tail was puffed up to twice its usual size. He was visibly pissed whether his face told the tale or not. 

With another cry I shot off into the city hoping to lose myself in the sky and the scenery. He could attempt to follow me through the shadows but up in the sky he’d be hard pressed to find any. Finally I found the perfect perch several blocks away near the top of the Aramark building. The glass of the building was smoky enough I could finally catch a glimpse of myself. A large male osprey sat on the roof ledge, white crested head held high in pride. Its brown markings on the face even mimicked the marks on my natural form. I had found it. One of my Forms Three.

“You are full of surprises, Mr. Locke” A voice called out. I raised my wings in preparation to flee until I noticed Goya, standing off to the side, leaning casually against an AC unit. “This is one method of escape I have never thought you’d find. I had assumed you weren’t trained enough to shift like this.”

Hopping down onto the roof proper, I gathered my magic around me. It was less difficult than it normally was to change my physicality back to its human disguise, but it was a more strange and disconcerting experience to shoot up to normal height as I went back to a biped. 

“How did you find me?” I asked breathless. If she could follow me, there was an even chance Einar was hot on my heels. 

“Relax, as I said before, Einar is cunning is but lacks originality. I followed you by knowing where you would go to ground. You are a son of this city. With wings at your disposal you would doubtless take to the highest points.”

“I did it.” I sighed more to myself than to her. I felt the energy leave my limbs and fell to the ground. I sat cross-legged on the ground, covering my face with shaking hands. “I’m so tired.” 

“You will get used to it. Your body has not learned how to make this change easy on you yet.”

She was looking at me inscrutable. I could have been prey or pitiable there was no telling with her. She moved faster than my eyes could follow, claws at my throat in an instant. I felt sudden panic threaten to overcome me, but no magic rose to my defense. I was too tired. She sighed and withdrew her hand, claws fading smoothly back into fingernails. 

“Aidan,” Her voice was soft. She wasn’t angry, but she couldn’t help but sound exhausted. “You will not win this particular fight. You have very few weapons and the enemy knows them all. You escaped today due to luck more than anything else. Find your employer, tell her it is hopeless and tear off this bandage before it is too late.”

I got angry at that. I didn’t quite know why but anger burned in my chest and rose in my throat. With it came the scent of my magic. I bit back as much of the bile as I could. It wouldn’t do to alienate to the local monarchs if my life was currently in danger. Still my emotional state must have been writ large across my face. One of Goya’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead, almost in challenge and it let me know the hole my eyes were attempting to burn into her forehead wasn’t going unnoticed.

“It’s unbelievably frustrating,” I sighed, trying to let my muscles relax. “To be consistently told you’re not good enough. You understand that I’ve spent the better part of my life being talked down to and thought the worst of.”

I sat down on the rail around the edge of the roof. Looking down at the gravel and tar. Pain and rage boiled in my chest continued to churn and I felt my skin prickle with the need to change, to charge in head first and cleave the situation into a million pieces. I clenched my hand to hide the black fur and sharpening claws. 

“The only reason I got this goddamn job in the first place is because no one would really miss me if I just disappear.” I let the bitterness in my voice sound out. Goya was watching with a slightly bewildered look on her face. I smiled at her, showing her one of my fang-like incisors. “Just this once, I would love to come out on fucking top.”

Goya looked at me in silence, moment after moment, unmoving, unblinking. She narrowed her eyes and nodded solemnly. As she stood, something clicked. Something so blithely obvious, I was kicking myself for not coming up with it beforehand. 

“I might…have an idea.” I whispered. Goya smiled anxiously.

**9**

The shadows were inhospitable at best. I couldn’t open my eyes or breathe, but I could still feel the biting deep cold. My body had reacted to the extreme temperature by producing thick black fur all over my exposed skin. It had forgone the claws which was lucky because I was clinging to Goya’s hand with all the strength I could muster. Her ability to keep holding my hand was commendable given how strong I could get, but she kept leading me without complaint.

We were only on the shadow roads for just a moment but it was so painful, such and antithesis to the Marsh Roads that I was momentarily taken aback by the fury of the cold. But I made sure to keep running, spurred by Goya’s insistent tugging. It was all I could do, blind and freezing as I was. Without warning, Light and warmth hit me like a physical force and we tumbled out of the shadows. I hit the ground with a soft thud, ripping my frozen eyelids apart prompting an immense pain as I yanked out most of my eyelashes. Judging by Goya’s legs positioned upright by my head, she suffered no ill effects for getting me here.

I shakily pushed myself up off the ground, trying to ignore the throbbing in my eyes. Getting my feet underneath me was a task and it took me a while to orient myself. We were inside a disused structure that looked like I might have housed some industry at some point. Reinforced wooden beams ran along either side of the walls, presumable put there to hold heavy machinery at one point. Now they were empty and mostly rotting to nothing. We were standing on a catwalk overlooking the whole floor, blissfully hidden in shadow. Below us on the floor of the warehouse, two chairs were sat in the center of the room. They were occupied by two twin children, one boy and one girl, currently holding each other and cringing away from the figure circling them. Einar paced predatorily around them, looking disinterestedly around at the scenery. To cap off the image, no less than four bridge trolls blocked the exits and entrances. As hard as it had been to enter this place, it would be harder still to leave it, especially when I had kids in toe.

“I will go now,” Goya whispered, placing her lips next to my ear to prevent even the sharp ears of Einar from catching her. “You have only moments, I will not enter a life and death battle for you.”

I nodded without looking behind me. Only a sudden blast of cold announced her exit. For my part I finally let a change take place willingly. I reached for my black fur, my fangs, and my claws. Once more the scent of my magic rose around me weaving into a tapestry of change. In moments I was in my speed form and ready for the fight. On cue, a loud smash shook the building and Einar snapped to the sound like a dog catching a scent. In an instant he was moving.

“You,” He waved his hands vaguely at the bridge trolls. “Keep watch. If Locke has survived he will be coming.”

He walked out the door and the instant the door closed I was in the air. My claws arched out in a blur of black fur and the first trolled yelled as my claws bit into his granite like flesh. To my surprise as much as hers, I felt the warm splash of blood spray out from the wound. I hit the ground and was already spinning before she had recovered from the initial attack. My magic shifted and with a shimmer I was in my brute force form. I kicked her in the stomach and watched in amazement as she soared into the wall and out on the other side with a furious crash.

I was moving onto my next quarry, I felt the need to stop and stare blankly at what I had done, but I knew that would kill me if stopped. I moved onto the next one. He’d had enough time to see what I was capable of and was on the move. The first swipe of the rock-like fist was aimed for my head, just slow enough that I could dodge out of the way. I slammed a blue-scaled fist against the man’s stomach with a feral snarl. He went flying just like his companion and was gone from my sight. 

My surprise was paramount among my emotions at that point. I had never been able to cut loose like this before. I had been in scrapes yes, but never to the point that I didn’t have to worry about killing my opponents. Now that I was faced with opponents with the constitution of a city block, I could let my hair down and the result was a touch frightening. 

Still the fear didn’t stop me from moving to the third troll and raking my claws against his upper arm. He in turn slammed his fist against my forehead. Stars danced in front of my eyes as I spun from the blow, but it didn’t seem to do as much damage as it would against unprotected skulls. I was testing the limits of my scales in this particular fight. I used the momentum of my spin to bring my claws around and slice shallowly into the chest of the troll. The force of the blow knocked him back slamming into one of the wooden support beams. Dust fell in clouds obscuring the body for a moment. 

The last troll, screaming all the while, came swinging at me. He was clumsy and missed by a country mile. I moved deftly out of his way and slammed my knee into what I presumed to be his diaphragm. He doubled over coughing, knees tucked up against his chest. There was something to be said for hard living. You get used to pain after a certain point. But I suppose that if you were functionally made of stone, pain was probably hard to come by. 

With the visible enemies on the ground I ran over to the children in the chair. The little girl screamed as I approached, cringing away from me. I let the fight form drop and shifted back into my natural form. 

“It’s okay!” I hissed, frantic with the need to get things under control. I went straight to the knot, pulling on the complicated twists of thick rope. “Your mom sent me. I’m here to take you home.”

Their continued gazes of pure terror showed me that they were not convinced. Convinced or not, I needed them to come with me, if we waited too long Einar would be coming back and I had a suspicion I wouldn’t be able to overcome him quite so easily.

“I understand you’re scared but you need to stay quiet and follow me. We have one chance at this.”

The little boy nodded at me as the rope fell away. He wrapped his newly freed arms around his sister. It was easy to see them as twins from here. Their faces were identically cherubic, but by that same token they were different in their coloring. The little girl had copper colored hair and similar eyes, where her brother was painted in metallic shades of mercury.

“What are your names?” I Hissed standing up and waving them to follow me. 

“Cadmus.” The boy whispered.

“Hortense.” His sister answered.

“Nice to meet you kids. I’m-“

“Aidan Locke!” The voice was low and furious, almost a mewling attack call of a house cat. Einar stood by the hole one of his trolls had made in the wall, he stood still as stone by his ears and tails flicked with fury.

“Oh shit,” I growled through gritted teeth. Fear cold and furious bit into my chest. My eyes roamed frantically around the room looking for an escape. Instead they fell on the troll I had smashed into the support beam. The beam itself was a little worse for wear due to the impact. An idea, desperate and racing presented itself. 

“Kids,” I said to them eyes fixed on Einar. My magic was already changing me, winding my voice down to a growl. “Run and hide. I’ll find you when this is done.”

Before I could see if they followed my commands, Einar moved. He was faster than I was on my best day, and if I hadn’t been waiting for the strike I would have been dead before I realized what had happened. As it was I dashed to the left towards the beam I had damaged before. Einar let out a ferocious roar as his claws bit into the meat of my arm, tracing lines of white hot fire in the skin now coated in black coarse fur. I hissed in pain and put my back to the beam. Einar’s second blow followed not long after.

I ducked, barely saving my head as the claw bit deep into the wood. I ducked out from under the arms and dashed toward the stairs to the catwalk. Einar ripped his hand out of the beam with the splintering of wood and metal supports and followed seconds behind. I struck as he drew near. He backpedaled, deftly avoiding my claws but at the same time buying me some precious seconds of running time. He was still hot on my heels as I reached the edge of the catwalks railing. 

In more fluid a motion than I knew I was capable of, I leapt off the railing of the catwalk out onto the wooden support several feet away. His claws sparked off the metal of the railing and he let out another furious roar as he missed me by millimeters. I turned a waited. I didn’t have long to wait. Einar was already in the air, landing with practiced skill boxing me in against the crossbeam. He swung again.

With a prayer to no one in particular I threw myself into the air. His claws slammed harmlessly into the crossbeam and ripped themselves free, ripping loose whatever was in their way. I slammed, not quite so harmlessly into the concrete floor ten feet below. Something in my shoulder cracked audibly and searing furious pain lanced down my arm. I screamed, but it came out more like a throaty roar. I crawled as much as I could away, even as Einar landed behind me. I eventually stopped and turned to face him. There was a noise in the warehouse now, something like straining wood and metal. I tried not to smile.

“Aidan Locke” the strange way he talked was so pronounced now that he was sure he had me. “You are a warrior. I must commend you for that. I had not expected to be challenged even this small amount. But you were little more than excellent prey. And now this game is ended.”

He loomed over me, filling my vision. There was a smile playing about his lips now. Smirking down at me with all the confidence of a predator facing prey. One hand idly flexed as his claws flashed in the light. 

“You know,” I rasped at him inching one more step backwards for the perfect positioning. “I spoke with someone who knew you recently.”

“Yes... The Egyptian, she has been a thorn in my side for generations. But you have no reason to worry, I shall be addressing the problem she still presents once I am done with you. I know her helping you is the only way you could have made it into this building.”

“She told me something about you I thought was really interesting.”

“Oh?” There was a playful chuckle in his tone. “Do tell.”

“She said you have it all, your fast, strong smart. But your real weakness comes from a lack of originality.” He stopped smiling and looked slightly concerned. The straining sound was fading or changing, I could barely tell through the pain in my arm. “I think it comes from too much power. People like you have always been on top, you don’t have to learn how to climb over walls, you punch right through them. So when you finally find a wall you can’t punch through, you get left out in the cold.”

Einar snarled and started forward but it was already too late. There was the final sound of straining wood and metal before supports began breaking and splintering. There was an earth-shattering crash and the largest part of the support beam fell. Einar had one moment, one single moment of fear and utter confusion, as if he couldn’t possibly comprehend what was happening to him. Then the support beam slammed into him. There was a sound like snapping a living branch and a sickening squelching noise. I closed my eyes against the horror and waited breathing heavily. There was silence for long moments.

After a minute or two, I opened my eyes. The support beam actually did a fairly good job of disguising the ruined form of Einar’s body. Only a puddle of blood and one outstretched hand belied what grisly sight lay beneath the wood. With a small shout I stood, cradling my arm. It took everything I had to keep moving. Shuffling out onto the floor away from the wreckage, I looked around for the twins. The two children were huddled behind another pillar near the exit, Hortense whimpering into her brother’s shaking shoulder.

“You two okay?” I croaked. My natural form had reasserted itself and the children looked marginally less terrified of me.

Cadmus nodded at me and hoisted himself and his sister to their feet. He almost fell right back down again when a slow clapping rang out through the room. I turned slowly to see the last of a veritable platoon of cats shuffle in. Goya stood on the catwalk surveying the carnage and clapping. Talia and Baldur stood behind her. The trio smiled down at me and Goya clapped slowly.

“Well done Mr. Locke, I couldn't have done better myself.” Her smile was feral and unconcerned. “Wind the old cat up until he was too bloodthirsty to see straight then essentially get him to kill himself. Inspired.”

“Yeah well,” I said. I truly hated the way she was smiling, there was a trap in every syllable she uttered. “I guess I had some help.”

“Speaking of...” She sighed happily. “Let us not forget who helped you in your moment of greatest need. I would say you’ve found yourself in significant debt to the Court of Cats.”

She looked to her companions on either side of her.

“Don't you think so?”

“Quite a bit.” Baldur stated tonelessly. 

“Practically a mountain of it” Talia smiled evilly at me.

“I get the picture.” I hissed, I was in pain and I was tired and I wasn’t in the mood for this nonsense. “What do you want?”

“Oh we shall be in touch.” Goya leaned casually on the railing looking at me like a particularly tasty meal. “For now, return the countesses children and send her my regards.”

I turned to go, reaching out to urge the twins onward. We were nearly towards the door, nearly to freedom when her voice sounded one more time.

“Oh and Aidan?” the cats were gone once more, She stood alone and smiled like she hadn't a care in the world. “Thank you.”

She stepped into the shadows and was gone.

**10**

The courtroom was deadly silent as the king made his way into the room, long mantle of gold and cream colored silk trailing behind him. He swept it off to one side as he seated himself regally upon his throne. He swept his cold gaze over the assembled masses before him before he moved to me. Nearly all of the kingdom had turned out for this one. Whether to sate their own curiosity or to really see the king stick it to me I couldn't say but they were here. Astrid and Andy stood to either side of me and on the other side of the room I could see the Countess Escobar, hands clutching the shoulders of her children as if afraid to leave them for even a moment. 

“We are here, to pass judgement on an alleged violation of Oberon’s Law. Bring forth the suspect.” 

Astrid placed on hand on my shoulder and moved with me into the space cleared in front of the throne. We stood shoulder to shoulder waiting. This was going to be a very different battle than the one I was just in but I had more experience with this particular enemy.

“Aidan Locke,” He smiled at me, contended that this was finally happening. “You stand accused of breaking Oberon’s Law and killing Einar of the Court of Cats. While the deceased is not a member of this domain, you are. And it falls to me to prosecute violations of the law in my jurisdiction. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Your highness, I am innocent of this.” The words were practiced they still came easy. “I have killed no member of this court nor any other.” 

Bres looked at me in incredulity, then he broke in amused chuckles.

“Pray, do explain the situation then. For what it's worth.” His tone, made it clear it was worth very little.

“I had been hired by Countess Escobar to investigate the disappearance of her children. During my investigation, I found the rouge Caith Sidhe holding the children hostage. I attempted to free the children but I was pursued by the rouge, he broke much of the building in his rage and brought it down upon his own head.” 

There was a flash of fury in his eyes. Painting Einar as a rogue and not a hired mercenary was Astrid’s idea. It would force the king to publicly denounce the kidnapping and put me in a better position politically. Anything less would cast suspicion on his involvement, and of course any cursory examination would prove it.

“I understand this action might seem hasty, Your Highness.” I said bowing my head. “But I knew that you would be just as invested in the release of your subjects from the hands of a mad kidnapper.”

“Well If that is true...” He was trying not to yell, to keep his tone unbelieving and disaffected.

“Oh it is.” A familiar female voice rang out. Stepping from around the throne and towards the front, Baldur, Talia and Goya sauntered. “The King of Warring Cats sends his polite regards and apologies that he could not attend in person, however he has sent us here to clear up this matter.”

“This court is not the domain of the King of Warring Cats.” Bres was nearly purple with indignation. Not only was this an inconvenient interruption but it was from the Caith Sidhe, a court he could not control.

“Of course not your majesty” Talia bowed low and formal. “But the king through it was best for us to deliver his account of things so that you wouldn’t be stuck using only the word of a peasant to determine the truth. The King knows how deeply you prize justice.”

“Speak...” He sighed, sinking lower into his chair and covered his face with his hands.

“This king would like to say that Aidan Locke’s story is true, seen personally by the King’s own eyes. The rogue assaulted Mr. Locke while he attempted to rescue members of this court and, in his rage, the rogue brought about his own demise.” Talia smiled wide and straightened her back. “The king would also like to extend a commendation to Mr. Locke, for indirectly dealing with a dangerous rogue who did not represent the interests of the Court of Cats.”

A vein was bulging on Bres’ temple. He could do little in this case, backed into a corner as he was. He could not keep declaring his disbelief of my story unless he also wanted to publicly announce that he doubted the word of a King of Cats. The commendation also made it hard for him to condemn me without publicly impugning Goya’s judgement. It was a two fold attack designed to back Bres into a corner and best of all, he knew it. I hadn’t planned for this last minute save, but I had been hoping for something like this. It saved me from having to have my blood memories examined by the King of my own court who would do whatever he could (up to and including lying through his teeth) to burn me alive for the fun of it.

“Well since you have such esteemed friends to vouch for you,” Bres growled, not bothering to hide his obvious fury. “Then we must dismiss these charges. And I must commend you, Mr. Locke for acting in the best interests of this kingdom. You are free.”

The commendation surprised me, but he would have no choice if he was trying to play to the narrative that didn't have him as a kidnapper. Our eyes met for a moment, and I knew this little stunt hadn't earned me any friends. Where the King and I might have disliked each other before. I knew that had changed. An enemy of mine, sat on the throne. And yet, Countess Escobar smiled at me as she joined the crowd leaving the courtroom. Hortense and Cadmus looked up and waved, smiling broadly. I waved back. They were happy to be home and I was happy to have helped make that happen. 

Astrid and Andy waited for me as I collected myself and walked to the end of the hall. Standing before the golden doors, we stood in a silent triangle, for just a couple seconds.

“Do you guys need a ride back to your place?” Astrid asked, taking her keys out of her purse.

“No,” I said smiling wide in anticipation. Andy and Astrid looked at me confused. I lifted up my hand. The skin was subtly changing into a brown and white feather pattern. “I have somewhere I need to stop first.”

  
  


The Marsh Roads were misty again, the willows rising from all around and the amorphous shadows in the distance uttering the clarion call to the night sky. There were two more forms to find in the mist somewhere and I knew I could find them.

“So,” A stark voice behind me made me jump. “How’d it go?”

The Sea Witch stood behind me, a feral smile writ large across her face. The mist rose around her in lazy unnatural circles, like it knew her and wanted to caress her.

“I found one, I still have a long way to go.”

“Well by all means kid,” She gestured at the formless mist around us. “Don’t let me stop you.”

On a whim, without any conscious thought. I hugged the woman and kissed her once on each cheek. She didn't seem to mind. She patted me on the shoulder as I walked off into the mist once more. It struck me finally, that it was nice to come out on top for once.


End file.
